Apparatus and methods for video compression using multi-resolution scalable coding

ABSTRACT

Apparatus and methods for digital video data compression via a scalable, multi-resolution approach. In one embodiment, the video content may be encoded using a multi-resolution and/or multi-quality scalable coding approach that reduces computational and/or energy load on a client device. In one implementation, a low fidelity image is obtained based on a first full resolution image. The low fidelity image may be encoded to obtain a low fidelity bitstream. A second full resolution image may be obtained based on the low fidelity bitstream. A portion of a difference image obtained based on the second full resolution image and the first full resolution may be encoded to obtain a high fidelity bitstream. The low fidelity bitstream and the high fidelity bitstream may be provided to e.g., a receiving device.

PRIORITY

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 62/289,105 filed Jan. 29, 2016, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODSFOR COMPRESSION OF PANORAMIC CONTENT USING MULTI-RESOLUTION SCALABLECODING”, and 62/310,550, filed Mar. 18, 2016, entitled “APPARATUS ANDMETHODS FOR COMPRESSION OF PANORAMIC CONTENT USING MULTI-RESOLUTIONSCALABLE CODING”, each of the foregoing being incorporated herein byreference in its entirety.

COPYRIGHT

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialthat is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has noobjection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentor the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and TrademarkOffice patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyrightrights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE

Field of the Disclosure

The present disclosure relates generally to storing and/or presenting ofimage and/or video content and more particularly in one exemplary aspectto encoding, decoding, and/or transmission of panoramic video content.

Description of Related Art

Image and/or video content may be characterized by angle of view orfield of view (FOV) (e.g., diagonal view angle of about 63° for 35-mmfocal length FX format camera). Image and/or video content may bepresented on a display that may be characterized by smaller view anglecompared to the view angle of the captured content. Such capturedcontent may be referred to as panoramic content wherein captured imagedimensions (in pixels) may be greater than dimensions of the view windowduring content presentation. In some implementation, panoramic contentcharacterized by full circle FOV may be referred to as 360° and/orspherical content.

360-degree and VR content video/image data usually involves very highresolution capture of images over a wide field of view. For a greatexperience, image resolution may be high (up to 8K resolution per eye).Current state of the art video compression codecs like H.264, HEVC andVP9 (by themselves) may not be well suited for encoding/decoding VRand/or panoramic content. Use of traditional codecs may proveimpractical for delivering VR and/or panoramic content over Internetand/or mobile networks.

Current 360-degree and VR video delivery and decoding systems may employa number of different techniques. For example, a decoding device mayreceive and decode the entire highest resolution native 360-degree imageand keep it in memory. As the user moves their device, thedecoder/renderer moves a cropped viewpoint to reflect where the viewerwants to look. This method has limitations, such as requiring the entire360-degree image to be sent at the highest resolution (from server),which results in high bandwidth requirements. As a result, playback overthe internet may result in buffering issues. Additionally, the decodingdevice has to have powerful processing capabilities to decode thehighest resolution 360-degree image. Moreover, the processing burden canresult in significant battery usage. As a result, only a limited amountof content can be consumed before the device has to be charged.

In another example, the server sends (and the decoder decodes) onlypartial high resolution video. The area where the user is looking isrendered in high resolution and the rest of the image is rendered in lowresolution. When the viewer moves his/her viewport, the decoder asksserver to transmit video data corresponding to updated viewpoint. Inthis case, the server has to transmit an intra-frame in order to decodethe current frame, or the decoder has to receive and decode allreference frames leading up to the last intra-frame. Both approacheshave their own set of limitations: transmitting an intra frame can leadto network congestion because intra-frames are usually much larger(compared to inter-frames). Having the decoder receive and decode allprior reference frames in a closed group of pictures (GOP) will increaselatency when updating the new image to a high resolution. This may alsocause high bandwidth utilization.

Within this context, possible areas for improvement may leverage thelimited viewing aspect; e.g., a viewer does not see the entire360-degree world simultaneously. New algorithms are needed that minimizelatency when the user moves his/her viewpoint, while still achievinghigh compression and low battery performance. Furthermore, idealsolutions would modify the encoding process to reuse existing hardwaredecoders (and not require special new hardware at the consumption side).

Panoramic (e.g., 360°) content may be viewed on a resource-restricteddevice (e.g., smartphone, tablet, and/or other device that may becharacterized by a given amount of available energy, data transmissionbandwidth, and/or computational capacity). Resources available to suchresource-limited device may prove inadequate for receiving and/ordecoding full resolution and/or full frame image content.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure satisfies the foregoing needs by providing, interalia, methods and apparatus for processing image and/or video content,and more particularly in one exemplary aspect to encoding, decoding,and/or transmission of panoramic video content.

In a first aspect of the disclosure, a computerized apparatus forproviding video content is disclosed. In one embodiment, the apparatusincludes an electronic storage apparatus configured to store a sequenceof images of a first frame resolution; a communications interfaceconfigured to enable communication of bitstreams to a client device; oneor more processors configured to execute a plurality of computerreadable instructions; and a storage apparatus in data communicationwith the one or more processors.

In one implementation, the storage apparatus includes at least onecomputer program, the at least one computer program having a pluralityof instructions which are configured to, when executed by the one ormore processors, cause the computerized apparatus to: obtain a firstfull resolution image at the first frame resolution from the sequence ofimages; obtain a low fidelity image at a second frame resolution lowerthan the first frame resolution based at least in part on a down-sampledversion of the first full resolution image; encode the low fidelityimage into a low fidelity bitstream; decode the low fidelity bitstreaminto a decoded low fidelity image; obtain a second full resolution imagebased at least in part on an up-sampled version of the decoded lowfidelity image; obtain a difference image based on the second fullresolution image and the first full resolution image; encode a portionof the difference image to obtain a high fidelity bitstream; and providethe low fidelity bitstream and the high fidelity bitstream via thecommunications interface.

In one variant, the low fidelity bitstream is characterized by at leastfirst bitrate, and the high fidelity bitstream is characterized by atleast a second bitrate. A ratio of the first bitrate to the secondbitrate may be based on, e.g., a Quality of Service (QoS) parameterassociated with the communications interface.

In another variant, a ratio of the second frame resolution to the firstframe resolution is based at least on a resolution scalabilityparameter, such as e.g., from a range of two (2) to sixteen (16)inclusive.

Alternatively or additionally, the resolution scalability parameter canbe based at least in part on a Quality of Service (QoS) parameterassociated with the communications interface.

In a further implementation, the plurality of instructions are furtherconfigured to, when executed by the one or more processors, cause theapparatus to: down-sample the down-sampled version of the first fullresolution image to obtain a lower fidelity image at a third frameresolution lower than the second frame resolution; encode the lowerfidelity image into a lower fidelity bitstream; decode the lowerfidelity bitstream into a decoded lower fidelity image; up-sample thedecoded lower fidelity image to obtain a second low resolution image,the down-sampled version of the first full resolution image furtherbeing combined with the second low resolution image to obtain the lowfidelity image; and display the obtained output view frame image via arendering device.

In yet another implementation, the plurality of instructions are furtherconfigured to, when executed by the one or more processors, cause theapparatus to: obtain another full resolution image at the first frameresolution from the sequence of images; down-sample the another fullresolution image to obtain a second low fidelity image at the secondframe resolution; encode the second low fidelity image into a second lowfidelity bitstream; decode the second low fidelity bitstream into asecond decoded low fidelity image; up-sample the second decoded lowfidelity image to obtain a third full resolution image; obtain a seconddifference image based on the another full resolution image and thethird full resolution image; encode a second portion of the seconddifference image relative to the difference image to obtain a secondhigh fidelity bitstream; and provide the second low fidelity bitstreamand the second high fidelity bitstream via the communications interface.The full resolution image and the another full resolution image maycollectively comprise a stereo image.

In another aspect of the disclosure, a method for providing videocontent is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes: obtaininga first panoramic image by decoding a first bitstream using a firstdecoder; obtaining a view frame image by at least decoding a secondbitstream using a second decoder; obtaining a second panoramic image atleast in part by up-sampling the first panoramic image to the resolutionof the view frame image; obtaining an output view frame image at leastin part by combining the view frame image and the second panoramicimage; and providing the obtained output view frame image to a renderingdevice.

In one implementation, the first panoramic image comprises a lowfidelity image characterized by at least a first resolution, and thesecond panoramic image comprises a high fidelity image characterized byat least a second resolution that is greater than the first resolution,with a ratio of the first resolution to the second resolution ischaracterized by a resolution scalability parameter.

In another implementation, the resolution scalability parameter is basedat least on a display capability of a display device; and the methodfurther includes displaying the output view frame image via the displaydevice. Alternatively or additionally, the resolution scalabilityparameter is based at least on a processing or memory limitation of thedisplay device.

In yet another implementation, the method further includes obtaining anintermediate image by at least decoding an intermediate bitstream usingat least a third decoder; the up-sampling the first panoramic image tothe resolution of the view frame image further includes combining theintermediate image with the first panoramic image.

In another embodiment, the method for providing video content includes:obtaining a first high fidelity image; obtaining a low fidelity imagebased at least on the first high fidelity image; encoding the lowfidelity image according to a scalable parameter to produce an encodedlow fidelity image; obtaining a second high fidelity image based atleast on the low fidelity image; obtaining a difference image based atleast on the second high fidelity image and the first high fidelityimage; encoding a portion of the difference image corresponding to aviewport; and providing the encoded low fidelity image and the encodedportion of the difference image to a display device via a communicationslink.

In one variant of this embodiment, the scalable parameter is based atleast in part on a limitation of the display device, and or a limitationof the communications link.

In yet another embodiment, the method for providing video contentincludes: for a first viewport display, obtaining a first output imageby combining a panoramic image and a first difference image for firstcoordinates of the first viewport display; determining when a changeoccurs in the first viewport display; responsive to the change,requesting a second difference image; and obtaining a second outputimage for the first viewport display by combining the panoramic imageand the second difference image.

In one implementation of the method, at least one of a resolutionquality, a size, and/or a bitrate associated with the second differenceimage is a scaled according to a Quality of Service (QoS) parameter.

In a further aspect, an integrated circuit (IC) device configured forimage or video data processing is disclosed. In one embodiment, the ICdevice is fabricated using a silicon-based semiconductive die andincludes logic configured to implement encoding, decoding, and/ortransmission of panoramic video content. In one variant, the IC deviceis a system-on-chip (SoC) device with multiple processor cores, and isconfigured to utilize various of the cores to perform at leastdown-sampling of full resolution images encoding of the reultant lowfidelity image into a low fidelity bitstream; decoding of the lowfidelity bitstream into a decoded low fidelity image; up-sampling of thedecoded low fidelity image; image differencing based on first and secondfull resolution images; and encoding a portion of a difference image toobtain a high fidelity bitstream.

In yet a further aspect, a method of utilizing a resource-constrainedreceiving or rendering device to render high-resolution video data isdisclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes selectively performingdown-sampling and subsequent difference processing on one or more framesof high-resolution video data to enable transmission of bothhigh-fidelity and low-fidelity bitstreams associated with the frames tothe receiving or rendering device, thereby enabling rendering thereatusing reduced resources as compared to the high resolution frames alone.

In another aspect, a data structure useful in, e.g., video dataprocessing is disclosed. In one embodiment, the data structure includesboth low-fidelity and high-fidelity bitstreams. The bitstreams areconfigured to (collectively) enable a reduced-capacityreceiving/rendering device to render the (source) high-resolutionimagery effectively.

Other features and advantages of the present disclosure will immediatelybe recognized by persons of ordinary skill in the art with reference tothe attached drawings and detailed description of exemplary embodimentsas given below.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a logical block diagram illustrating a system for panoramiccontent capture and viewing in accordance with one implementation of thedisclosure.

FIG. 1B is a functional block diagram illustrating a capture device foruse with, e.g., system of FIG. 1A in accordance with one implementation.

FIG. 2 is a graphical illustration depicting viewport change whenviewing panoramic content, in accordance with one implementation.

FIGS. 3A and 3B are functional block diagrams illustrating spatialscalability encoder/decoder configuration, respectively, usable forproviding viewable panoramic content, in accordance with oneimplementation.

FIG. 3C is functional block diagram illustrating spatial scalabilityencoder configured to provide single LF bitstream and multiple HFbitstreams and usable for providing viewable stereo imaging content, inaccordance with one or more implementations

FIG. 3D is functional block diagram illustrating spatial scalabilityencoder configured to provide multiple LF and HF bitstreams and usablefor providing viewable stereo imaging content, in accordance with one ormore implementations.

FIG. 3E is functional block diagram illustrating spatial scalabilitydecoder configured to decoding single LF bitstream and multiple HFbitstreams and usable for enabling viewing of stereo imaging content, inaccordance with one or more implementations

FIG. 3F is functional block diagram illustrating spatial scalabilitydecoder configured to decode multiple LF and HF bitstreams and usablefor enable viewing of stereo imaging content, in accordance with one ormore implementations.

FIGS. 4A-4B are functional block diagrams illustrating a qualityscalability encoder/decoder, respectively, each of which may be used forproviding viewable panoramic content, in accordance with oneimplementation.

FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating a group of frames configurationof the disclosed spatial scalability encoder, in accordance with oneimplementation.

FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating frame configurations of a lowerfidelity bitstream, higher fidelity bitstream, and viewport, inaccordance with one implementation.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram illustrating three-layer scalability encoderconfiguration, in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 7A is logical flow diagram illustrating a method of producingbitstreams for viewing panoramic content in accordance with oneimplementation of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7B is logical flow diagram illustrating a method of obtaining animage for a viewport of panoramic content in accordance with oneimplementation of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is logical flow diagram illustrating a method of obtaining animage responsive to a change of a viewport into panoramic content inaccordance with one implementation of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9A is a functional block diagram illustrating a system for encodingcontent using scalable architecture of the disclosure, in accordancewith one implementation.

FIG. 9B is a functional block diagram illustrating a system for decodingcontent using scalable architecture of the disclosure, in accordancewith one implementation.

FIGS. 10A-10C are functional block diagrams illustrating scalabilityencoder configurations useable for providing viewable panoramic content,in accordance with some implementations.

FIG. 11 illustrates a processing pipeline for providing panoramiccontent using the scalability encoding methodology of the disclosure, inaccordance with some implementations.

All Figures disclosed herein are © Copyright 2016 GoPro, Inc. All rightsreserved.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Implementations of the various aspects of present technology aredescribed in detail with reference to the drawings, which are providedas illustrative examples in order to enable those skilled in the art topractice the technology. Notably, the figures and examples below are notmeant to limit the scope of the present disclosure to a singleimplementation or implementation, but other implementations andimplementations are possible by way of interchange of or combinationwith some or all of the described or illustrated elements. Whereverconvenient, the same reference numbers will be used throughout thedrawings to refer to same or like parts.

Apparatus and methods for providing video content using multi-resolutionscalable coding are provided. Panoramic content (e.g., content capturedusing 180-degrees, 360-degrees view field and/or other field of view)and/or virtual reality (VR) content, may be characterized by high imageresolution (e.g., 7860 by 4320 pixels (8K)) and/or high bit rates (e.g.,up to 100 megabits per second (mbps)). Presently available standardvideo compression codecs, e.g., H.264 (described in ITU-T H.264(01/2012) and/or ISO/IEC 14496-10:2012, Information technology—Coding ofaudio-visual objects—Part 10: Advanced Video Coding, each of theforegoing incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), HighEfficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265, described in e.g.,ITU-T Study Group 16—Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG)—ITU-T H.265,and/or ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29/WG 11 Motion Picture Experts Group(MPEG)—publishes the HEVC standard as ISO/IEC 23008-2:2015, each of theforegoing incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, and/or VP9video codec, may prove non-optimal for providing a viewport portion ofpanoramic content, especially to resource-limited devices.

When viewing panoramic and/or VR content using a viewport, the server orother entity may send (and the decoder may decode) a portion ofhigh-resolution video. The area where the user is looking (i.e., theregion on which their vision is focused) may be in high resolution, andrest of the image may be in low resolution. When the viewer moveshis/her viewport, the decoder may ask the server to transmit video datacorresponding to updated viewpoint. Using methodology of the disclosure,the server or other entity may advantageously transmit new high fidelitycontent for the new viewport position with better performance than whatis available using prior art solutions. The decoder may use existing(buffered) lower fidelity content and combine it with the new highfidelity content. Such an approach may, inter alia, decrease latency ofswitching from low fidelity image to high fidelity image, alleviate theneed of transmitting one or more high fidelity intra frames, reducenetwork congestion, and/or reduce energy used by the decoding device.

One difference in VR content consumption (when compared to traditionalvideo) is that the viewer is not seeing the entire 360-degrees worldsimultaneously. Therefore, the approaches described herein may enablereduction in latency when the user moves his/her viewpoint, while stillachieving comparatively high compression and battery consumption.Furthermore, the encoding process may be modified (whether statically ordynamically), and yet still advantageously allow the use of existinghardware decoders (and hence not require specially adapted or newhardware at the consumption side).

Panoramic and/or virtual reality content may be viewed by a clientdevice using a viewport to the extent of the panoramic image. In someimplementations of the present disclosure, viewing dimension(s) of theviewport may be configured smaller than the extent dimension(s) of thecontent (e.g., a viewport covering 1280 pixels wide by 720 pixels inheight may be used to view content that was obtained over area 3840pixels in width and 2160 pixels in height). It is noteworthy thatalthough rectangular viewport shape is shown in FIG. 2 blocks 212 and222, the viewport is not limited to rectangular shapes. Non-rectangularshapes (e.g., contoured rectangle, contoured trapezoid, and/ortrapezoid) may be utilized in some implementations. Additionally, theclient device(s) may include a portable media device characterized bygiven energy, thermal, and/or computational resources. Notably, videocontent may be encoded using the multi-resolution and/or multi-qualityscalable coding approach described herein, in order to reducecomputational, thermal and/or energy load on the client device.

As shown in FIG. 3A, input to the exemplary system is a high-resolutionimage 302. A lower resolution image (LRI), indicated by 324, may beobtained based on a first higher resolution image (HRI) (present at theinput 302). A second HRI 320 may be obtained by up-sampling the lowerresolution image. A difference image 322 may be obtained based on thesecond HRI and the first HRI; e.g., via a differencing or subtractionprocess 318. This difference image may also be encoded per an encoderprocess 316. In some implementations, a portion of the difference imagecorresponding to the view port may be encoded. The encoded portion (orthe encoded difference image) may be provided to the client device alongwith the encoded LRI bitstream 332. The LRI bitstream is referred to inthe present example as the base layer (BL) bitstream or low-fidelity(LF) output, while the encoded difference image bitstream is referred toas an enhancement layer (EL) or high-fidelity (HF) output.

The decoder(s) of the client device may utilize in one implementationtwo bitstreams (e.g., the base layer and the enhancement layer) toobtain image and/or video content for the viewport. It is noteworthy,that the exemplary content delivery methodology of the disclosureenables a decoder of the client device to obtain an image frame at agiven time based on the BL and EL images for that given time, andwithout necessitating delivery of “reference” or other images from priortime instances. Responsive to a viewport change, information provided bythe BL and EL bitstreams may advantageously be utilized to reconstructvideo for the new viewport without retransmission of reference frames.

The content delivery methodologies of the present disclosure may beutilized for facilitating virtual reality (VR) content delivery, videoconferencing, video game streaming or immersive experiences when viewingspherical (e.g., 360-degrees content), and/or virtual realityapplications, among others.

FIG. 1A illustrates a capture system configured for acquiring panoramiccontent, in accordance with one implementation. The system 100 of FIG.1A may include a capture apparatus 110, e.g., such as GoPro actioncamera, e.g., HER04 Silver.

The capture apparatus 110 may include 6-cameras (e.g., 104, 106, 102)disposed in a cube-shaped cage 120. The cage 120 dimensions may beselected between 25 mm and 150 mm, preferably 105 mm in someimplementations. The cage 120 may be outfitted with a mounting port 122configured to enable attachment of the camera to a supporting structure(e.g., tripod, photo stick). The cage 120 may provide a rigid supportstructure. Use of a rigid structure may ensure that orientation ofindividual cameras with respect to one another may remain at a givenconfiguration during operation of the apparatus 110.

Individual capture devices (e.g., 102) may comprise a video cameradevice, such as described in, e.g., such as described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/920,427 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOREMBEDDING METADATA INTO VIDEO STREAM” filed on 22 Oct. 2015, theforegoing being incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

In some implementations, the capture device may include two cameracomponents (including a lens and imaging sensors) that are disposed in aJanus configuration, e.g., back to back such as described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 29/548,661, entitled “MULTI-LENS CAMERA” filed on15 Dec. 2015, the foregoing being incorporated herein by reference inits entirety.

The capture apparatus 110 may be configured to obtain imaging content(e.g., images and/or video) with 360° field of view, also referred to aspanoramic or spherical content, e.g., such as shown and described inU.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/949,786, entitled “APPARATUS ANDMETHODS FOR IMAGE ALIGNMENT” filed on 23 Nov. 2015, and/or U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/927,343, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FORROLLING SHUTTER COMPENSATION FOR MULTI-CAMERA SYSTEMS”, filed 29 Oct.2015, each of the foregoing being incorporated herein by reference inits entirety.

Individual cameras (e.g., 102, 104, 106) may be characterized by fieldof view 120° in a longitudinal dimension and 90° in a latitudinaldimension. In order to provide for an increased overlap between imagesobtained with adjacent cameras, image sensors of any two adjacentcameras may be configured at 90° with respect to one another. By waynon-limiting illustration, the longitudinal dimension of camera 102sensor may be oriented at 90° with respect to the longitudinal dimensionof the camera 104 sensor; the longitudinal dimension of the camera 106sensor may be oriented at 90° with respect to the longitudinal dimension116 of the camera 104 sensor. The camera sensor configurationillustrated in FIG. 1A, may provide for 420° angular coverage invertical and/or horizontal planes. Overlap between fields of view ofadjacent cameras may provide for an improved alignment and/or stitchingof multiple source images to produce, e.g., a panoramic image,particularly when source images may be obtained with a moving capturedevice (e.g., rotating camera).

Individual cameras of the apparatus 110 may comprise a lens (e.g., lens114 of the camera 104, lens 116 of the camera 106). In someimplementations, the individual lens may be characterized by what isreferred to as “fish-eye” pattern, and produce images characterized by afish-eye (or near fish-eye) field of view (FOV). Images captured by twoor more individual cameras of the apparatus 110 may be combined usingstitching of fish-eye projections of captured images to produce anequirectangular planar image, in some implementations, e.g., such asdetailed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/920,427 entitled“APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR EMBEDDING METADATA INTO VIDEO STREAM” filedon 22 Oct. 2015, incorporated supra.

The capture apparatus 110 may house one or more internal metadatasources, e.g., video, inertial measurement unit, global positioningsystem (GPS) receiver component and/or other metadata source. In someimplementations, the capture apparatus 110 may comprise a devicedescribed in detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/920,427,entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR EMBEDDING METADATA INTO VIDEOSTREAM” filed on 22 Oct. 2015, incorporated supra. The capture apparatus110 may comprise one or optical elements 102. Individual opticalelements 116 may include, by way of non-limiting example, one or more ofstandard lens, macro lens, zoom lens, special-purpose lens, telephotolens, prime lens, achromatic lens, apochromatic lens, process lens,wide-angle lens, ultra-wide-angle lens, fisheye lens, infrared lens,ultraviolet lens, perspective control lens, other lens, and/or otheroptical element.

The capture apparatus 110 may include one or more image sensorsincluding, by way of non-limiting example, one or more of charge-coupleddevice (CCD) sensor, active pixel sensor (APS), complementarymetal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor, N-typemetal-oxide-semiconductor (NMOS) sensor, and/or other image sensor. Thecapture apparatus 110 may include one or more microphones configured toprovide audio information that may be associated with images beingacquired by the image sensor.

The capture apparatus 110 may be interfaced to an external metadatasource 124 (e.g., GPS receiver, cycling computer, metadata puck, and/orother device configured to provide information related to system 100and/or its environment) via a remote link 126. The capture apparatus 110may interface to an external user interface device 120 via the link 118.In some implementations, the device 120 may correspond to a smartphone,a tablet computer, a phablet, a smart watch, a portable computer, and/orother device configured to receive user input and communicateinformation with the camera capture device 110. In some implementation,the capture apparatus 110 may be configured to provide panoramic content(or portion thereof) to the device 120 for viewing.

In one or more implementations, individual links 126, 118 may utilizeany practical wireless interface configuration, e.g., WiFi, Bluetooth(BT), cellular data link, ZigBee, near field communications (NFC) link,e.g., using ISO/IEC 14443 protocol, ANT+ link, and/or other wirelesscommunications link. In some implementations, individual links 126, 118may be effectuated using a wired interface, e.g., HDMI, USB, digitalvideo interface, display port interface (e.g., digital display interfacedeveloped by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA),Ethernet, Thunderbolt), and/or other interface.

In some implementations (not shown) one or more external metadatadevices may interface to the apparatus 110 via a wired link, e.g., HDMI,USB, coaxial audio, and/or other interface. In one or moreimplementations, the capture apparatus 110 may house one or more sensors(e.g., GPS, pressure, temperature, heart rate, and/or other sensors).The metadata obtained by the capture apparatus 110 may be incorporatedinto the combined multimedia stream using any applicable methodologiesincluding those described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/920,427entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR EMBEDDING METADATA INTO VIDEOSTREAM” filed on 22 Oct. 2015, incorporated supra.

The user interface device 120 may operate a software application (e.g.,GoPro Studio, GoPro App, and/or other application) configured to performa variety of operations related to camera configuration, control ofvideo acquisition, and/or display of video captured by the cameraapparatus 110. An application (e.g., GoPro App) may enable a user tocreate short video clips and share clips to a cloud service (e.g.,Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Dropbox); perform full remote control ofcamera 110 functions, live preview video being captured for shotframing, mark key moments while recording with HiLight Tag, View HiLightTags in GoPro Camera Roll for location and/or playback of videohighlights, wirelessly control camera software, and/or perform otherfunctions. Various methodologies may be utilized for configuring thecamera apparatus 110 and/or displaying the captured information,including those described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,606,073, entitled“BROADCAST MANAGEMENT SYSTEM”, issued Dec. 10, 2013, the foregoing beingincorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

By way of an illustration, the device 120 may receive user settingcharacterizing image resolution (e.g., 3840 by 2160 pixels), frame rate(e.g., 60 frames per second (fps)), and/or other settings (e.g.,location) related to the activity (e.g., mountain biking) beingcaptured. The user interface device 120 may communicate the settings tothe camera apparatus 110.

A user may utilize the device 120 to view content acquired by thecapture apparatus 110. Display of the device 120 may act as a viewportinto 3D space of the panoramic content. In some implementation, the userinterface device 120 may communicate additional information (metadata)to the camera apparatus 110. By way of an illustration, the device 120may provide orientation of the device 120 with respect to a givencoordinate system, to the apparatus 110 so as to enable determination ofa viewport location and/or dimensions for viewing of a portion of thepanoramic content. By way of an illustration, a user may rotate (sweep)the device 120 through an arc in space (as illustrated by arrow 128 inFIG. 1A). The device 120 may communicate display orientation informationto the capture apparatus 110. The capture apparatus 110 may provide anencoded bitstream configured to enable viewing of a portion of thepanoramic content corresponding to a portion of the environment of thedisplay location as it traverses the path 128.

The capture apparatus 110 may include a display configured to provideinformation related to camera operation mode (e.g., image resolution,frame rate, capture mode (sensor, video, photo), connection status(connected, wireless, wired connection), power mode (e.g., standby,sensor mode, video mode), information related to metadata sources (e.g.,heart rate, GPS), and/or other information. The capture apparatus 110may include a user interface component (e.g., one or more buttons)configured to enable user to start, stop, pause, resume sensor and/orcontent capture. User commands may be encoded using a variety ofapproaches including but not limited to duration of button press (pulsewidth modulation), number of button presses (pulse code modulation)and/or a combination thereof. By way of an illustration, two shortbutton presses may initiate sensor acquisition mode described in detailelsewhere; single short button press may be used to (i) communicateinitiation of video and/or photo capture and cessation of video and/orphoto capture (toggle mode); or (ii) video and/or photo capture for agiven time duration or number of frames (burst capture). It will berecognized by those skilled in the arts that various user commandcommunication implementations may be realized, e.g., short/long buttonpresses.

FIG. 1B illustrates one implementation of a camera apparatus forcollecting metadata and content. The apparatus of FIG. 1B may comprise acapture device 130 that may include one or more processors 132 (such assystem on a chip (SOC), microcontroller, microprocessor, CPU, DSP, ASIC,GPU, and/or other processors) that control the operation andfunctionality of the capture device 130. In some implementations, thecapture device 130 in FIG. 1B may correspond to an action cameraconfigured to capture photo, video and/or audio content.

The capture device 130 may include an optics module 134. In one or moreimplementations, the optics module 134 may include, by way ofnon-limiting example, one or more of standard lens, macro lens, zoomlens, special-purpose lens, telephoto lens, prime lens, achromatic lens,apochromatic lens, process lens, wide-angle lens, ultra-wide-angle lens,fisheye lens, infrared lens, ultraviolet lens, perspective control lens,other lens, and/or other optics component. In some implementations theoptics module 134 may implement focus controller functionalityconfigured to control the operation and configuration of the cameralens. The optics module 134 may receive light from an object and couplereceived light to an image sensor 136. The image sensor 136 may include,by way of non-limiting example, one or more of charge-coupled devicesensor, active pixel sensor, complementary metal-oxide semiconductorsensor, N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor sensor, and/or other imagesensor. The image sensor 136 may be configured to capture light wavesgathered by the optics module 134 and to produce image(s) data based oncontrol signals from the sensor controller 140. Optics module 134 maycomprise focus controller configured to control the operation andconfiguration of the lens. The image sensor may be configured togenerate a first output signal conveying first visual informationregarding the object. The visual information may include, by way ofnon-limiting example, one or more of an image, a video, and/or othervisual information. The optical element, and the first image sensor maybe embodied in a housing.

In some implementations, the image sensor module 136 may include withoutlimitation, video, audio, capacitive, radio, vibrational, ultrasonic,infrared sensors, radar, LIDAR and/or sonar, and/or other sensorydevices.

The apparatus 130 may include one or more audio components (e.g.,microphone(s) embodied within the camera (e.g., 142). Microphones mayprovide audio content information.

The apparatus 130 may include a sensor controller module 140. The module140 may be used to operate the image sensor 136. The controller mayreceive image or video input from the image sensor 136; audioinformation from one or more microphones, such as 142. In someimplementations, audio information may be encoded using e.g., AAC, AC3,MP3, linear PCM, MPEG-H, and/or other audio coding format (audio codec).In one or more implementations of spherical video and/or audio, theaudio codec may comprise a 3-dimensional audio codec e.g., Ambisonicscodec.

The apparatus 130 may include one or more metadata modules embodied(e.g., 144) within the camera housing and/or disposed externally to thecamera. The processor 132 may interface to the sensor controller and/orone or more metadata modules 144. Metadata module 144 may includesensors such as an inertial measurement unit (IMU) including one or moreaccelerometers and/or gyroscopes, a magnetometer, a compass, a globalpositioning system (GPS) sensor, an altimeter, ambient light sensor,temperature sensor, and/or other sensors. The capture device 130 maycontain one or more other metadata/telemetry sources, e.g., image sensorparameters, battery monitor, storage parameters, and/or otherinformation related to camera operation and/or capture of content.Metadata module 144 may obtain information related to environment of thecapture device and aspect in which the content is captured. By way of anon-limiting example, an accelerometer may provide device motioninformation, comprising velocity and/or acceleration vectorsrepresentative of motion of the capture device 130; the gyroscope mayprovide orientation information describing the orientation of the device130, the GPS sensor may provide GPS coordinates, time, identifying thelocation of the device 130; and the altimeter may obtain the altitude ofthe camera 130. In some implementations, internal metadata module 144may be rigidly coupled to the capture device 130 housing such that anymotion, orientation or change in location experienced by the device 130is also experienced by the metadata sensors 144. The sensor controller140 and/or processor 132 may be operable to synchronize various types ofinformation received from the metadata sources. For example, timinginformation may be associated with the sensor data. Using the timinginformation metadata information may be related to content (photo/video)captured by the image sensor 136. In some implementations, the metadatacapture may be decoupled form video/image capture. That is, metadata maybe stored before, after, and in-between one or more video clips and/orimages. In one or more implementations, the sensor controller 140 and/orthe processor 132 may perform operations on the received metadata togenerate additional metadata information. For example, themicrocontroller may integrate the received acceleration information todetermine the velocity profile of the capture device 130 during therecording of a video. In some implementations, video information mayconsist of multiple frames of pixels using any applicable encodingmethod (e.g., H262, H.264, Cineform and/or other standard).

The apparatus 130 may include electronic storage 138. The electronicstorage 138 may comprise a system memory module is configured to storeexecutable computer instructions that, when executed by the processor132, perform various camera functionalities including those describedherein. The electronic storage 138 may comprise storage memoryconfigured to store content (e.g., metadata, images, audio) captured bythe apparatus.

The electronic storage 138 may include non-transitory memory configuredto store configuration information and/or processing code configured toenable, e.g., video information, metadata capture and/or to produce amultimedia stream comprised of, e.g., a video track and metadata inaccordance with the methodology of the present disclosure. In one ormore implementations, the processing configuration may comprise capturetype (video, still images), image resolution, frame rate, burst setting,white balance, recording configuration (e.g., loop mode), audio trackconfiguration, and/or other parameters that may be associated withaudio, video and/or metadata capture. Additional memory may be availablefor other hardware/firmware/software needs of the apparatus 130. Theprocessing module 132 may interface to the sensor controller 140 inorder to obtain and process sensory information for, e.g., objectdetection, face tracking, stereo vision, and/or other tasks.

The processing component 132 may interface with the mechanical,electrical sensory, power, and user interface 146 modules via driverinterfaces and/or software abstraction layers. Additional processing andmemory capacity may be used to support these processes. It will beappreciated that these components may be fully controlled by theprocessing module 132. In some implementation, one or more componentsmay be operable by one or more other control processes (e.g., a GPSreceiver may comprise a processing apparatus configured to provideposition and/or motion information to the processor 132 in accordancewith a given schedule (e.g., values of latitude, longitude, andelevation at 10 Hz)).

The memory and processing capacity may aid in management of processingconfiguration (e.g., loading, replacement), operations during a startup,and/or other operations. Consistent with the present disclosure, thevarious components of the system may be remotely disposed from oneanother, and/or aggregated. For example, one or more sensor componentsmay be disposed distal from the capture device, e.g., such as shown anddescribe with respect to FIG. 1A. Multiple mechanical, sensory, orelectrical units may be controlled by a learning apparatus vianetwork/radio connectivity.

The apparatus 130 may include user interface (UI) module 146. The UImodule 146 may comprise virtually any type of device capable ofregistering inputs from and/or communicating outputs to a user. Thesemay include, without limitation, display, touch, proximity sensitiveinterface, light, sound receiving/emitting devices, wired/wireless inputdevices and/or other devices. The UI module 146 may include a display,one or more tactile elements (e.g., buttons and/or virtual touch screenbuttons), lights (LED), speaker, and/or other UI elements. The UI module146 may be operable to receive user input and/or provide information toa user related to operation of the camera apparatus 130.

The apparatus 130 may include an input/output (I/O) interface module148. The I/O interface module 148 may be configured to synchronize thecapture device 130 with other cameras and/or with other externaldevices, such as a remote control, a second capture device 130, asmartphone, a client device 120 of FIG. 1A and/or a video server. TheI/O interface module 148 may be configured to communicate informationto/from various I/O components. In some implementations the I/Ointerface module 148 may comprise a wired and/or wireless communicationsinterface (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, HDMI, Wireless USB, Near FieldCommunication (NFC), Ethernet, a radio frequency transceiver, and/orother interfaces) configured to communicate to one or more externaldevices (e.g., devices 124, 122, 120 in FIG. 1A and/or metadata source).In some implementations, the I/O interface module 148 may interface withLED lights, a display, a button, a microphone, speakers, and/or otherI/O components. In one or more implementations, the I/O interface module148 may interface to energy source, e.g., battery and/or DC electricalsource. The communications interface of the apparatus 130 may includeone or more connections to external computerized devices to allow for,inter alia, configuration and/or management of remote devices e.g., asdescribed above with respect to FIG. 1A and/or with respect to FIGS.2A-2B. The connections may include any of the wireless or wirelineinterfaces discussed above, and further may include customized orproprietary connections for specific applications. In someimplementations, the communications interface may comprise a component(e.g., a dongle), comprising an infrared sensor, a radio frequencyantenna, ultrasonic transducer, and/or other communications interfaces.In one or more implementation, the communications interface may comprisea local (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi) and/or broad range (e.g., cellular LTE)communications interface configured to enable communications between thecapture device (e.g., 110 in FIG. 1A) and a remote device (e.g., 120 inFIG. 1A).

The apparatus 130 may include a power system that may be tailored to theneeds of the application of the device. For example, for a small-sizedlower power action camera, a wireless power solution (e.g. battery,solar cell, inductive (contactless) power source, rectification, and/orother) may be used.

FIG. 2 illustrates viewport change when viewing panoramic content, inaccordance with one implementation. In some implementations a user mayview panoramic content using a virtual reality (VR) headset, 202 in FIG.2. Headset 202 may include a sensor component configured to provideinformation related to orientation and/or motion of headset 202. In someimplementations, the sensor component may include an accelerometer, atilt sensor, a compass, a heading sensor, a gyroscope, and/or othersensor.

VR and 360-degree content may be consumed using a portable userinterface device, e.g., a smartphone with a touchscreen. A user mayutilize the touchscreen to move the viewport or move the device aroundphysically to request an updated viewport. In some implementationswherein the smartphone may be equipped with a motion and/or orientationsensor (e.g., a gyroscope and/or accelerometer) that can capture deviceposition with significant accuracy, motion of the smartphone within a360° environment may be detected, and used for adjusting the viewport.

When headset 202 is pointing in a given direction, e.g., as shown inpanel 200 in FIG. 2, the viewport associated with the position ofheadset 202 may be denoted by area 212 within the panoramic image frame210. As used herein the terms “viewport” and/or “view area” may be usedto describe a portion of view field that may be used for viewingpanoramic content that may be characterized by content view field (e.g.,shown by frame 210 in FIG. 2). When panoramic content is presented on atwo-dimensional display device, the viewport may denote atwo-dimensional area (e.g., 212) within the 2-dimensional projection ofthe acquired panoramic content (frame 210).

When providing a portion of the panoramic content (e.g., viewport 212)to a client device, a portion of the content corresponding to thepresent viewport may be encoded, transmitted, and/or decoded to reduceload on a content server, transmission resource (e.g., bandwidth,energy) utilization, and/or client device decoder load. Viewport changesmay necessitate content bitstream adjustment. By way of an illustration,as head of the user moves from configuration 200 to configuration 220 inFIG. 2, the viewport may change, e.g., from area 212 to area 222 withinthe panoramic content frame 210. Accordingly, the content providingentity (e.g., content server) may need to transition from providingbitstream from content within the area 212 to content associated withthe area 222.

FIGS. 3A-3F illustrate scalable encoding/decoding methodology that mayenable provision and/or viewing of panoramic content using reducedcomputational, energy transmission bandwidth resources.

FIG. 3A illustrates spatial scalability encoder configuration, that maybe employed on a content server side when providing viewable panoramiccontent, in accordance with one implementation. Encoder configuration300 may be implemented by a computerized system 900 of FIG. 9A describedherein.

Encoder configuration 300 in FIG. 3A may be configured to obtain twobitstreams, e.g., base layer (BL) 332 and enhancement layer (EL) 330 fordelivery to a target destination (e.g., client device 922 of FIG. 9Aand/or device 120 of FIG. 1A). Base layer 332 bitstream may be obtainedas follows. Input 302 may be obtained. In some implementations, theinput 302 may correspond to one or more panoramic images. Individualpanoramic images (also referred to as full resolution full frame images)may correspond to a stitched two-dimensional image (e.g., rectilinear,planar equirectangular, and/or other projection) such as shown by frame210 in FIG. 2, obtained with a panoramic capture device, e.g., device110 of FIG. 1A. In some implementations, input 302 may correspond to awide angle image obtained with a wide angle lens (e.g., from 120-degreesto 190-degrees field of view). In some virtual reality implementations,e.g. such as described with respect to FIGS. 3C-3F, input 302 mayinclude stereo images consisting of pairs of images (e.g., one for eacheye/camera).

Input 302 may be provided by a processor (e.g., 132 in FIG. 1B) inoperable communication with one or more imaging sensors and/or obtainedfrom electronic storage (e.g., 918 in FIG. 9A). In some implementations,the input 302 may include 8K image and be characterized by 7680 by 4320pixels resolution, 7680 by 2160 pixels resolution, and/or otherresolution in excess of, e.g., full high definition (HD) resolution of1920 by 1080 pixels.

One or more input images 302 may be provided to a down-samplingcomponent 304 configured to produce reduced resolution imaged 324. Thedown-sampling factor may be selected between 2 and 16, e.g., 4 in someimplementations. By way of an illustration, for 7680 by 4320 image 302,the down-sampled image 324 may be characterized by full HD resolution of1920 by 1080 pixels.

The down-sampled (lower resolution) image 324 may be encoded by anencoder 306 to obtain low fidelity (LF) output bitstream 326. Theencoder 306 may be configured using any applicable encoder, e.g., blockbased encoders e.g., H.264, HEVC, V9, wavelet based encoders e.g., JPEG2000, lossless encoder and/or any practical image encoder. In someimplementations, the encoder 306 operation may be bypassed, which wouldamount to no compression of the image 324. The encoded LF outputbitstream 326 may be provided to a target destination as depicted bycomponent 332.

Encoder 306 may be optimized for input characteristics. By way of anillustration, given that input into encoder 306 corresponds todown-sampled image, the input may contain fewer high frequency features.As a result, the encoder may make biased decisions to optimize qualityfor this down-sampled image and/or use this assumption to speed upencoding. During this encoding, the encoder may be configured to saveencoding results e.g., such as motion vector and transformation in orderto use in the encoding stage 316.

The encoded down-sampled bitstream 326 may be decoded by decoder 308 toobtain decoded lower resolution image 328. The decoder 308 may beconfigured to match encoding process 306 using any applicablemethodology, e.g., block based decoders like H.264, HEVC, V9, waveletbased decoders like JPEG 2000, and/or no decoding (if 324 is not beingencoded).

The decoded image 328 may be up-sampled by process 310. The up-samplingprocess 310 may be configured reciprocal of the down-sampling process304 such that operation of process 310 may be configured to obtainup-sampled image 320 at the resolution of the input image 302. By way ofan illustration, for 7680 by 4320 pixels image 302, the down-sampledimage 324 may be characterized by full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080pixels; the up-sampled image 320 may be characterized by 7680 by 4320pixels resolution.

The up-sampled decoded image 320 may be subtracted from the originalhigh resolution image 302 to produce residual or difference image 322.In some implementations, the subtraction process may be configured toimplement a pixel-wise subtraction. For multi-channel images (e.g., RGB,YUV), subtraction operation may be effectuated for individual channel ofmultiple channels.

The difference image 322 may be encoded by high fidelity (HF) encoder316 to produce high fidelity output bitstream 330. In some applications,this is also called enhancement layer (EL) bitstream.

Input 322 into encoder 316 may contain less energy at lower frequencies(large special scales) and more energy as higher frequencies (smallspatial scales) compared to the input 302.

In some implementations, e.g., such as illustrated in FIGS. 10A-10C,subtraction 318 and encoding operations may be effectuated by the highfidelity encoder component, e.g., encoder 1010 of the system 1000 ofFIG. 10A, encoder 1026 of the system 1020 of FIG. 10B encoder 1046 ofthe system 1040 of FIG. 10C.

In these implementations, input to the subtraction-component may includethe high resolution input 302 and up-sampled decoded reconstructed input320 of FIG. 3A.

In some implementations, the up-sampling 310 and subtraction 318operations may be effectuated by the HF encoder, e.g., encoder 1010 ofsystem 1000 of FIG. 10A, and/or encoder 1046 of the system 1040 of FIG.10C. In this case, the input to encoder may include the high resolutioninput 302 and decoded reconstructed content 328.

In some implementations, the down-sampling operations (e.g., 304) may beeffectuated by a LF encoder, e.g., encoder 1010 of the system 1000 ofFIG. 10A, encoder 1024 of the system 1020 of FIG. 10B.

In some implementations, operations in FIG. 3A may be effectuated usinga given encoder component, e.g., encoder 1010 of FIG. 10A. The encoder1010 may receive the high resolution input and output two bitstreams1006, 1004 in FIG. 10A, corresponding to low-fidelity (LF) image andhigh fidelity (HF) image, respectively.

In some implementations, term fidelity may be used to characterize imagequality. Image quality may be characterized by encoded bitstreamresolution, bit-depth, bitrate, a combination thereof, and/or otherparameters. The encoder 306 may be tailored to encode lower fidelityinput more efficiently. The lower fidelity input may include a softenedversion of the input 302, reduced bit-depth version of the input 302, orthe unaltered input 302. The encoder 306 may include a typical H.264,HEVC, and/or VP9 encoder functionality with IPPPP group of pictures(GOP) structure. B-frames in GOP may be used to increase compressionperformance. Encoder 306 may typically be operating at a lower bitratecompared to the bitrate of the input 302.

Encoder 316 may be configured to encode higher fidelity input moreefficiently. The HF encoder may be configured to utilize some of theencoding results in 306 to optimize video quality and/or speed. The HFencoder may be operated using a GOP structure consisting of I-frames andP-frames (e.g., IPPPP) to reduce latency that may be associated withprocessing of B-frames. The HF encoder may be configured such thattemporal prediction (from previous reference frames) is not allowed, soas to reduce and/or altogether remove latency when viewport changes.Since the HF encoder (e.g. 316) may be encoding higher resolutioncontent compared to the content being encoded by the encoder 306, theencoder 316 may be operable to utilize larger block sizes, largertransform size (e.g., 2-4 times the standard transform size), and/ormore advanced encoding tools tailored for high resolution image. By wayof an illustration, LF encoder may utilize 4×4 transform; HF encoder mayutilize 8×8 transform and quantization scaling matrix.

In some implementations, LF encoder codec may be configured differentfrom the codec employed by the HF encoder. By way of a non-limitingillustration, LF encoder may be configured based on H.264 codec, whileHF encoder may be configured based on HEVC codec.

In one or more implementations, lower resolution content portion (e.g.,LF bitstream) may be encoded using more computationally intensiveconfiguration (e.g., more detailed motion prediction). Output (e.g.,motion vectors) of the LF encoding process may be reused and/or refinedby the HF encoder in order to reduce energy use associated withobtaining HF bitstream of a given quality and/or obtain higher qualityHF bitstream for given energy.

In some implementations, LF and HF bitstreams may be encoded usingindividually configured profiles of an encoder, e.g., LF bitstream maybe encoded using H.264 baseline profile; HF bitstream may be encodedusing one of higher profiles (e.g., high profile or high10 profile ofH.264). Such implementations, may advantageously enable at least partialdecoding of the encoded output bitstreams (e.g., 330, 332) by a decoderthat may only support lower quality decoder profiles (e.g., decodercapable of decoding a baseline profile may decode the LF bitstreamthereby providing some representation of the content). A decoder capableof decoding baseline and high profile may provide higher fidelitycontent by decoding of the LF and the HF bistreams, compared to adecoder capable of decoding only a single bitstream (LF or HF).

Individual bitstreams 330, 332 may be characterized by their respectivenominal bitrate. For input image bit rate of X bps, HF output bitstream(330) bit rate may be configured at a fraction of X, the fractionselected between 0.1 and 0.9, such as 0.6 in one implementation. Lowerfidelity (332) bit rate may be configured as a fraction of the HF outputrate, the fraction selected between 0.1 and 0.5, e.g., 0.25 in oneimplementation. By way of a non-limiting illustration of providing360-degree content, input 302 may include 8K images (7640 by 2160pixels) provided at 30 fps for a bit rate of 30 megabits per second(Mbps); LF output may be include 3840 by 1080 images pixels at 30 fpsfor a bit rate of 10 mbps; HF output may include a viewport of 1920 by1080 pixels at 30 fps for a bit rate of 2 mbps. By way of a non-limitingillustration of providing virtual reality (VR) stereo video content,input 302 may include pairs of 4K images 2× (3840 by 2160 pixels)provided at 30 fps for a bit rate of 30 megabits per second (Mbps); LFoutput may be include one or two full HD images (1920 by 1080 pixels) at30 fps for a bit rate of 5 mbps (10 mbps for two images); HF output maybe include a viewport of two 1920 by 1080 pixel images at 30 fps for atotal bit rate of 1 mbps (1 mbps per image). FIG. 5B illustratesexemplary image configurations for input image 540, lower fidelity image550, and higher fidelity image 542.

Processes 304, 306 of FIG. 3A may be effectuated by base layer component908 of FIG. 9A described herein. Processes 310, 308, 318, 316 of FIG. 3Amay be effectuated by enhancement layer component 910 of FIG. 9Adescribed herein. Output bitstreams 330, 332 may be communicated to atarget destination using any applicable methodology. In someimplementations, e.g., user uploading panoramic content onto a webserver, the content 302 may be encoded, the output bitstreams 332, 330may be stored on the web server storage (e.g., 918 in FIG. 9A) forfuture delivery to a client device (e.g., 922 in FIG. 9A). In someimplementations of encoding live content (e.g., during a videoconference or live game streaming, content acquisition and broadcast bya content capture system 100 of FIG. 1A), the content 302 may be encodedand the output bitstreams 332, 330 may be delivered in real time to aclient device using any applicable methodology (e.g., a broadcast, asingle cast, a point-to-point transmission, a multicast, and/or otherdelivery method).

FIG. 3B illustrates spatial scalability decoder configuration, that maybe employed on a client side when viewing panoramic content, e.g., suchas provided by encoder configured in accordance with someimplementations of FIG. 3A configuration.

Decoder configuration 340 shown in FIG. 3B may be implemented on avariety of devices, e.g., a remote device 120 of FIG. 1A, the headset202 in FIG. 2, a client device 922 of FIG. 9A, system 940 of FIG. 9B,and/or other device configured to execute instructions and/or supportingdecoding functionality using either hardware or software components.

Higher fidelity (HF) input bitstream 330 and lower fidelity (LF) inputbitstream 332 may be received using any applicable methodology ofdelivering digital content (e.g., streaming over wireless data network).LF bitstream 332 may be decoded using LF decoder 338 to obtain lowerresolution lower fidelity image output 348. LF decoder 338 may beconfigured compatible with the encoder 306 of FIG. 3A (e.g., supportingappropriate block dimensions, tile configuration, group of pictures(GOP) structure, and/or other configuration). In some implementations LFdecoder 338 may be configured to implement functionality of decoder 308of FIG. 3A. Decoded lower resolution lower fidelity image output 348 maybe up-sampled by component 344 to obtain full resolution lower fidelityimage output 350 (also referred to as the base layer). The decoderoutput 348 may also be directly used for displaying and/or rendingoutput image to display device. Up-sampling component 344 may beconfigured in accordance with down-sampling parameters used duringencoding (e.g., the down-sample factor of component 304 may be used asup-sampling factor by component 344).

HF bitstream 330 may be decoded using HF decoder 336 to obtain higherfidelity image output 346 (that also may be referred to as thereconstructed difference image). HF decoder 336 may be configuredcompatible with the HF encoder 316 of FIG. 3A (e.g., supportingappropriate block dimensions, tile configuration, group of pictures(GOP) structure, and/or other configuration).

In some implementations, the HF encoder 316 and/or HF decoder 336 may beconfigured to encode images using multiple blocks of pixels (referred toas minimum viewport block (MVB)). This may be the minimum size of theviewport window (212 in FIG. 2). The MVB may be a block of pixels thatcan be encoded (and decoded) independent of the blocks spatially ortemporally adjacent to it. Pixels in MVB may be predicted from (i)collocated block of a low-fidelity image; (ii) other pixels inside theMVB, and/or when encoding multiple views e.g. stereo VR content encodingleft and right eye images, difference image from co-located MVB forindividual stereo image channels. In some implementations, the MVB mayinclude a block of 256 by 64 pixels coded using tiles of HEVC encoder.In one or more implementations, the encoder 316 and/or HF decoder 336may be configured to utilize 16×16 macroblocks encoded using Intra-BLmode in H.264-scalable video codec. Size of MVB may be adjusted inaccordance with the input resolution and application constraints. LargeMVB may increase the size of non-visible area, thereby contributing tonon-essential bits and extra compute needed to decode it. A very smallMVB may result in suboptimal compression performance for high-fidelitysignal.

The base layer image 350 and the enhancement layer image 346 may becombined. In some implementations, the combiner process 342 may includepixel wise addition operation with truncation wherein value of a pixelat a given location in one image is combined (added) to value of a pixelat the corresponding location in another image. If the combined valueexceeds pixel value range, the combined value may be set to the limit ofthe pixel value range (e.g., 255 for 8-bit pixel values).

In some implementations image frame of the HF input bitstream 330 maycorrespond to a portion of the input frame (e.g. viewport 212 of theframe 210 in FIG. 2, 542 of frame 540 in FIG. 5B). The combinationoperation 342 may include up-sampling area 552 in FIG. 5B and thenadding output to HF input 346 in FIG. 3B. Image 350 (or 550 in FIG. 5B)may be retained in memory of the content decoding and/or displayprocess; as the viewport position and/or size changes, the contentdisplay process may retrieve the retained image and render acorresponding area in low-resolution image 550 while it waits for new HFinput bitstream 330.

Combined image output may be displayed. In some implementations, displaycomponent 352 may correspond to a screen of a user interface device(e.g., 120 in FIG. 1A), a TV display, a personal computer, a VR headset,and/or other display component. In one or more implementations, combinedimage may be stored for subsequent streaming and/or viewing.

In some implementations, e.g., such as illustrated in FIG. 2 and/or FIG.5B, a window (viewport) into panoramic content provided by a contentserver may be characterized by a rectangular shape (e.g., window 542,552). Various other viewport window shapes are contemplated, e.g.,trapezoidal, curved, and/or other shapes (e.g., non-rectangular window).In one implementation of encoding content obtained with a cameracharacterized by a fish eye lens pattern, window may be configured inaccordance with the fisheye to equirectangular transformation operation,e.g., such as area denoted 526 described FIG. 5 of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/927,343 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FORROLLING SHUTTER COMPENSATION FOR MULTI-CAMERA SYSTEMS” filed on 29 Oct.2015, the foregoing being incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

At decoder, pixels for a non-rectangular viewport may undergo atransformation to spherical coordinates for proper rendering andpresentation.

In some implementations of, e.g., live video streaming to a singleclient, a portion of the difference image that the viewer may bewatching may be encoded by the encoder 316. If multiple users may beviewing the content or if the difference image 328 was pre-encoded, thefollowing approaches may be utilized.

If the difference image has been already encoded (e.g., for user 1) theencoder may, in one implementation, decode the viewport area andre-encode the viewport pixels in slices or tiles—. In someimplementations, the encoder may utilize coefficients from originalbitstream and re-apply entropy encoding to the blocks in viewport area,package these blocks in slices or tiles in order to obtain encodedoutput bitstream 330.

In some implementations, a codec such as, e.g., VP9 and/or HEVC may beused to effectuate the above encoding functionality. A tile may be anindependently decodable blocks of minimum size of, e.g., 256×64. Blocksize of 256 by 64 pixels may provide a better compression performancecompared to smaller blocks (e.g., 16 by 16 pixels). The difference image540 may be encoded using tiles of 256×64 size. As the viewport positionand/or dimensions change, an encoding system (e.g., 900 in FIG. 9A) mayselect tiles corresponding to the updated viewport from an encodedbitstream (using encoder 316) and provide selected tiles to client.

Encoding methodology of the disclosure may be employed in the followingexemplary scenario. A user may upload a video onto a server. Entire lowfidelity and high fidelity frames of the video may be encoded by theserver and may be stored. In response to a request to watch a viewport,the server may provide previously encoded LF bitstream and HF tiles fromHF bitstream corresponding to the viewport area. Such configuration mayenable content delivery to multiple users without necessitatingre-encoding.

In some implementations of a videoconferencing system a user A and auser B may be engaged in a video call. Since there are only twoparticipants watching each other, the server may not need to encode theentire diff image. Only portions of the diff images corresponding toviewports requested by individual users may be encoded.

In a multiparty video conferencing system (e.g., where 10 people are ona call with one another), the server may be configured to encode theentire high fidelity frame. Because multiple users may be looking attheir own viewports, the server may encode entire video and servecontent for individual users for their own viewport window. If duringthe teleconference number of users drops (e.g., to two), the full HFframe encoding may be configured to transition to partial HF frameencoding in order to save computations.

As shown in FIG. 3A, output of encoding process when processing videoand or images is configured to provide one base layer image (lowfidelity output bitstream 332) and one enhancement layer image (highfidelity output bitstream 330) for a given input image 302. Thisimplementation may be utilized with panoramic image input (e.g., 302input).

Encoding methodology of the present disclosure may be employed whenencoding virtual reality content consisting of stereo image pairsobtained with spatially spaced cameras. FIGS. 3C-3D illustrate spatialscalability encoder configurations, usable for providing viewable stereoimaging content, in accordance with one or more implementations. In someimplementations of stereo imaging content capture, pairs of images maybe captured with two cameras that are slightly offset from one another.The individual images may be referred to as the “right” image and “left”image.

When encoding VR content, the input may include pairs of images such ase.g., input 1 (303) and input 2 (301) in FIG. 3C. For a wide field ofview image capture (e.g., greater than 60° in some implementations),left and right images may have high similarity for regions where objectsare distant from the camera. Stereoscopic or Multiview encoders 360, 370of FIG. 3C-3D may be configured to utilize similarity between imageswithin a given pair of stereo images. In implementations where theindividual cameras of a stereo pair are displaced from one another by adistance of about fifty (50) millimeters (mm) during capture, objectsfarther than about five (5) meters (m) from the individual cameras mayappear similar (e.g., in appearance and/or position) within cameraimages. Objects disposed closer than that distance may appear differentin shape and/or position between the and left/right cameras due toparallax effects. It will be recognized by those skilled in the artsthat these values are exemplary and object representation displacementin images due to parallax may occur based on object dimensions, cameraFOV, and/or camera spacing.

The system 360 of FIG. 3C may include an encoder component 317configured to obtain HF output bitstream 2 331. In some implementations,the output bitstream 2 331 may be obtained based on encoding thetransformed input 2 (323) and difference image 322 obtained by thesubtraction component 318. In some implementations, the LF outputbitstream 332 may provide lower fidelity panoramic image content, HFoutput may provide higher fidelity image for a viewport into thepanoramic image content, and HF output bitstream 2 (331) may providehigher fidelity difference image into the viewport relative the HFoutput bitstream 330. In some implementations, the HF output bitstream330 may be characterized by greater bitrate compared to the outputbitstream 331. Input 322 into encoder 316, 317 in FIG. 3C may containless energy at lower frequencies (large special scales) and more energyas higher frequencies (small spatial scales) compared to the input 302.

In some implementations, input 301, 303 may correspond to twostereoscopic images, one per eye. In one or more implementation, thedifference images obtained from left and right camera source images maybe encoded separately using encoder configuration of FIG. 3A.

In some implementations, difference image for one camera (one eye) maybe configured (predicted) based on difference image for another cameraas shown and described with respect to FIGS. 3C-3F.

Encoder 360 may be configured to encode imaging input including pairs ofimages 303, 301. Input 301 may correspond to left portion of stereoimage; input 303 may correspond to a right portion of the stereo image.

Given a given degree of similarity between left/right images of stereocontent, encoded stereo output may include one LF output bitstream(e.g., 332 in FIG. 3C) and two HF output bitstreams 330, 331 in FIG. 3C.One of the channels (e.g., right image input 303 in FIG. 3C) may beencoded using methodology described with respect to FIG. 3A to obtain LFoutput 332 and HF output bitstream 330.

Information from encoding one channel of stereo imaging input (e.g.,right image input 303 in FIG. 3C) may be utilized to improve efficiencywhen encoding HF version of the other channel (e.g., left image input301 in FIG. 3C), as compared to encoding left/right channelsindependently from one another.

Input 301 may be encoded to obtain the second HF output bitstream 331 asfollows. Up-sampled LF output 320 image may be combined with input 301(via the transform 319) to obtain output 323. In FIG. 3C, the transformcomponent 319 may be configured to effectuate a subtraction and/ortransform operation (e.g., such as performed by the component 318 ofFIG. 3A).

In other variants, the transformation operation 319 may includetranslation, rotation, scaling, warping, and/or other operations appliedto input 301 and/or 320. When encoding VR content, the component 319 mayeffectuate a translation operation (e.g. a shift) to the up-sampled baselayer pixels before subtracting input pixels. The translation operationmay be configured to match perspective of left/right views and improvealignment between the input 2 (301 in FIG. 3C) and the up-sampledversion of input 1 (320 in FIG. 3C). The transformation operation 319may include subtraction of the aligned image 320 from input 301 toobtain a residual left channel image 323. The residual image 323 may beencoded by encoder 317 to obtain a HF output bitstream 2 331.

The encoder 317 may be provided with the residual image version 322 forthe other stereo channel. The encoder 317 may utilize similaritiesbetween inputs 323, 322 to improve encoding efficiency of outputbitstream 2 331. In some implementations, the improved efficiency may becharacterized by one or more of reduced computations, increased quality,reduced energy use. In some implementations, the operation of HFencoders 316, 317 may be configured as a part of a stereoscopic and/orMultiview encoding process that may be automatically configured todetect parallax in the input 322 (also referred to as the “base view”)ant input 323 (also referred to as the “dependent view”). Based ondetecting an amount of parallax (e.g., based on displacement of one ormore objects in the images) the Multiview encoding process mayadaptively select appropriate inputs (e.g., 322 and/or 323 for encodingin order to obtain output bitstreams 330, 331. By way of anillustration, when encoding objects distant from the camera (e.g., five(5) meters (m) or more for fifty (50) millimeter (mm) cameraseparations) the Multiview encoder may encode the base view 322 toobtain output bitstream 330; for close objects, the encoder may encodeboth the base view 322 and the dependent view 323 to obtain outputbitstreams 330, 331. In some implementations, an encoder may adaptivelyswitch from one input to another input, or to both inputs, duringencoding.

FIG. 3D illustrates an encoder configuration 370 for encoding stereoinput to obtain two (2) LF output bitstreams 332, 333 and two (2) HFoutput bitstreams 335, 330. Encoder configuration 370 of FIG. 3D may beutilized for encoding stereo input 312, 311 that may be characterized bya lower degree of similarity compared to input 301, 303 described withrespect to FIG. 3C. Configuration of FIG. 3D may be utilized whenobjects within left/right images are displaced substantially (e.g., 25%of object width) between left/right images due to parallax caused bylarger camera spacing and/or close object proximity to the cameras. InFIG. 3D, input 311, 312 may be obtained, e.g., using cameras that may bespaced more distant compared to cameras used to obtain input 301, 303and/or cameras characterized by less overlapping FOV compared to camerasused to obtain input 301, 303. In FIG. 3D, input 311 may correspond to aleft portion of the stereo image; input 312 may correspond to a rightportion of the stereo image.

In FIG. 3D, one of the channels (e.g., channel 1) may be encoded usingmethodology described with respect to FIG. 3A to obtain LF outputbitstream 332 and HF output bitstream 330. Another channel (e.g., input311 of channel 2) may be encoded to obtain the second LF outputbitstream 333 using down-sample-encode methodology described withrespect to FIG. 3A. In FIG. 3D, broken lines denote manipulationoperations applied to input 311.

Input 311 may be encoded to obtain a second HF output bitstream 335 asfollows. Up-sampled LF output 321 for channel 2 may be combined with theinput 311 to obtain output 349. In some implementations, the combinationmay include subtraction operation implemented by component 323. Theresidual image 349 may be encoded by encoder 317 to obtain HF outputbitstream 2 335. The encoder 317 may be provided with the residual imageversion 348 for channel 1. The encoder 317 may utilize similaritiesbetween inputs 348 and 349 to improve encoding efficiency of outputbitstream 335. In some implementations, the improved efficiency may becharacterized by one or more of reduced computations, increased quality,reduced energy use. In some implementations, operation of encoders 316,317 may be configured as a part of a stereoscopic and/or Multiviewencoding process that may be automatically configured to detect parallaxin the input 348 (the base view) ant input 349 (the dependent view).Based on detecting an amount of parallax (e.g., based on displacement ofone or more objects in the images) the Multiview encoding process mayadaptively select an appropriate input (e.g., 348 and/or 349) forencoding in order to obtain output bitstreams 330, 335. By way of anillustration, when encoding objects distant from the camera (e.g., five(5) meters (m) or more for fifty (50) millimeter (mm) cameraseparations) the Multiview encoder may encode base view 348 to obtainoutput bitstream 330; for close objects the encoder may encode both thebase view 348 and the dependent view 349 to obtain output bitstreams330, 335. In some implementations, an encoder may adaptively switch fromone input to another input, or to both inputs, during encoding.

Information from encoding one channel of stereo imaging input (e.g.,channel 1 input 312 in FIG. 3D) may be utilized to improve efficiencywhen encoding HF version of the other channel (e.g., left input 311 inFIG. 3D), as compared to encoding left/right channels independently fromone another.

FIGS. 3E-3F illustrate spatial scalability decoder configurations,usable for viewing stereo imaging content, in accordance with one ormore implementations. When decoding VR content (that may include twoimage channels, e.g., left/right), the input may include two HFbitstreams 330, 331 and the LF bitstream 332 (in FIG. 3E). As shown inFIG. 3E, the decoder configuration 380 may include decoder component 338configured to decode LF input bitstream 332; decoder components 336, 337may be configured to decode HF input bitstreams 330, 331, respectively.Lower fidelity bitstreams may provide lower fidelity image informationfor left and right stereo image components. Higher fidelity bitstreamsmay provide higher fidelity information (e.g., an enhancement layer) forrespective channels (e.g., left or right). In some implementations, thehigher fidelity bitstreams may provide information for a viewport into apanoramic image.

Decoder 338 output 348 may be up-sampled to obtain full resolution lowerfidelity image output 350 (also referred to as the base layer). The baselayer image output 350 may be combined with the decoded HF input HF1 346to obtain a reconstructed viewport image 356 for one of the stereochannels (e.g., channel 1). Decoder 337 may provide decoded HF2 output347. The operation of decoders 336, 337 may be configured in accordancewith the operation of encoder 316, 317. By way of an illustration, whenencoders 316, 317 utilize an HEVC codec with given tiles, slices, codingunits, quality profiles, de-blocking filters and/or otherconfigurations, the decoders 336, 337, respectively, may be configuredwith the appropriate corresponding parameters suitable for the HEVCdecoding process.

Decoded output 347 may be combined with the base layer image 350 bytransform component 343. Transform component 343 may be configured toeffectuate a combining operation (e.g., addition) such as performed bythe component 342 of FIG. 3B. In some implementations of encoding VRcontent, the transform component 343 may be configured to translatepixels of one of the decoded image channel (e.g., 347) relative to thepixels of the other decoded image channel (e.g., 350). The translationoperation may precede the combining operation. The translation operationmay be configured to match perspectives of left/right views and improvealignment between left/right image channels. Output 357 may provide areconstructed viewport image for another stereo channel (e.g., channel1). The resulting reconstructed images 356, 357 may be viewed on adisplay device (e.g., a VR headset 202 in FIG. 2).

FIG. 3F illustrates a spatial scalability decoder configuration 390 forviewing stereo imaging content encoded by e.g., the encoder system 370of FIG. 3D. When decoding VR content (that may include two (2) imagechannels e.g., left/right), input into the decoder 390 may include two(2) HF bitstreams 330, 335 in FIG. 3E and two (2) LF bitstreams 332,333.

Decoder configuration 390 may include decoder components 338, 339configured to decode LF input bitstreams 332, 333, respectively; anddecoder components 336, 367 configured to decode HF input bitstreams330, 335, respectively. Lower fidelity bitstreams 332, 333 may providelower fidelity image information channel 1 and channel 2, respectively,of the stereo image. Higher fidelity bitstreams may provide higherfidelity information (an enhancement layer) for respective channel(e.g., left or right). In some implementations, the higher fidelitybitstreams may provide information for a viewport into a panoramicstereo image.

Outputs 348, 349 of decoders 338, 339, respectively, may be up-sampledto obtain full resolution lower fidelity image output 350, 351 (alsoreferred to as the base layer) for a respective channel. Decoders 348,349 may be configured in accordance with configuration of encoders usedto obtain encoded bitstreams 332, 333 e.g., from encoders 306 in FIG.3D. By way of an illustration, when encoders 306 utilize an HEVC codecwith a given slice, macroblock, quality profile, de-blocking filterand/or other configuration, the decoders 338, 339, respectively, may beconfigured with corresponding appropriate parameters for the HEVCdecoding process. Similarly, decoders 336, 367 may be configured inaccordance with configuration of encoders used to obtain encodedbitstreams 330, 331 e.g., encoders 316, 317 in FIG. 3D.

Outputs 346, 377 of decoders 336, 367, respectively, may be combinedwith the respective up-sampled base layer images 350, 351 to obtainreconstructed stereo image channels 356, 387. The combiner component 373may be configured to combine residual image 377 and up-sampled baselayer image 351 e.g., via a pixel level addition operation such asperformed by the component 342 of FIG. 3B. In some implementations ofencoding VR content, the component 373 may be configured to selectivelycombine up-sampled base layer image 351, residual image 377 for a givenchannel (e.g., image 377 for channel 2) and residual image for anotherchannel (e.g., image 356 for channel 1) to obtain reconstructed image387 for the given channel (e.g., channel 2). In one such embodiment,selective combination may include evaluating the pixel values of inputs356, 377, determining a location of various pixels within inputs 356,377, and/or other operations. By way of illustration, when viewing animage of a distant object (from the capture device), the objectrepresentations in left/right stereo image portions may be substantiallysimilar to one another. Thus, component 373 may detect a degree ofsimilarity (e.g., based on values of pixels of output 377 being within agiven range (e.g., below a given value and zero); component 373 may thenobtain output 387 by copying input 356 from the other channel. In someimplementations, the image output for the second stereo channel (e.g.,the output 387) may be configured based on a sum of the LF reconstructedimage for that channel (351) and the HF image for that channel (377); asum of the LF reconstructed image for that channel (351), the HF imagefor the other (first) channel (346), and the HF image for that channel(377); or as a copy of the first channel output (356). The reconstructedimages 356, 387 may be viewed on a display device (e.g., VR headset 202in FIG. 2).

FIGS. 4A-4B illustrate an encoder and decoder system for scalablequality, that may be used for providing viewable panoramic content, inaccordance with various implementations. The encoder system 400 of FIG.4A may be configured to transform panoramic imaging input 302 into two(or more) encoded output bitstreams. The input 302 may be encoded usinga lower fidelity encoder 406 to obtain a lower fidelity bitstream 426.In FIG. 4A, the encoded bitstream 426 may be decoded by component 408 toobtain a reconstructed LF output 428. The decoder 408 may be configuredto be compatible with the encoder 406 e.g., using HEVC codec, and/orother codec. The reconstructed LF output 428 may be combined with theinput 302. In some implementations of image encoding, the reconstructedLF image may be subtracted from the input image by a component 318 toobtain a residual image. Residual output 438 may be encoded using ahigher fidelity encoder 416. The HF encoder 416 may be configured toproduce output bitstream 430 characterized by higher quality compared toencoding operation of encoder LF. In some implementations, operation ofcomponents 406, 416 may be based on a quality of encoding.

In some embodiments, the quality of encoding (also referred to asQuality of Service (QoS)), may be adapted by modifying an image bitdepth, resolution and/or encoded output bitrate. The encoded bitrate maybe modified for a given image resolution, thereby enabling an encoderwith scalable quality capabilities, also referred to herein as a“quality scalability encoder”. In one “spatial scalability encoder”variant, an image resolution (or other spatial parameter) is modifiedfor a given bitrate; still other “spatio-quality scalability encoder”variants may modify image resolution and bitrate contemporaneous withone another. In some implementations, a bit depth of an image pixel(e.g., 8 bit, 10 bit, 12 bit, 16 bit or other number of bits) may bemodified by a scalability parameter in order to obtain lower fidelity(fewer bits per pixel) output, and/or higher fidelity output (more bitsper pixel). As used herein, the term “quality scalability” may refer toan encoder configured to produce two or more bitstreams of differentbitrates, wherein the bitrates are controlled by the quality ofencoding. As used herein, the term “resolution scalability” may refer toan encoder configured to produce two or more bitstreams of differentbitrates, wherein the bitrates are controlled by the resolution ofencoded image. As used herein, the term “spatial scalability” may referto an encoder configured to produce bitstream images of different sizesand/or spatial extents, wherein the bitrates are controlled by the imagesize/spatial extent. It will be recognized by those skilled in the artsthat other encoder configurations may be utilized including acombination of two or more of quality, resolution, and spatialscalability encoders.

In some implementations of image encoding, output bitstream 432 may bereferred to as the base layer and output bitstream 430 may be referredto as the enhancement layer. The LF output bitstream 432 and the HFoutput bitstream 430 may be provided to a target destination. In one ormore implementations, the target destination may include a contentdepository, a user interface device, and/or other destinations that areconfigured to store and/or present content. In some implementations ofencoding imaging content, the HF output bitstream 430 may characterize aportion of the image (e.g., viewport 212 in FIG. 2) and the outputbitstream 432 may characterize the whole panoramic image (e.g., 210 inFIG. 2).

Spatial scalability and quality scalability encoding approaches may beused to achieve different QoS for video delivery. Spatial scalabilityencoding can be used to create different resolutions at different rates,whereas quality scalability encoding can be used to create the sameresolution at different rates. Various factors may be used to decidewhen to use spatial scalability and when to use quality scalability. Forexample, in one such scenario, the decision may depend on bitrate ratiosbetween low-resolution and high-resolution video. In this example,spatial scalability encoding provides a higher bitrate ratio, and isbetter suited to situations where there is a larger difference betweenhigh and low resolutions. Thus, if the high-resolution is encoding at afirst rate and low-resolution is encoding at a quarter rate (25%), thenthe more aggressive spatial scalability encoding may be used. Incontrast, if the high-resolution is at a first rate and low-resolutionis at three-quarters (75%) of the first rate, then less aggressivequality scalability encoding may be used.

FIG. 4B illustrates a quality scalability decoder configuration, thatmay be employed on a client side when viewing panoramic content e.g.,such as provided by a quality scalability encoder configured inaccordance with FIG. 4A.

As shown, the decoder configuration 450 shown in FIG. 4B may beimplemented on a variety of devices e.g., remote device 120 of FIG. 1A,VR headset 202 in FIG. 2, a client device 922 of FIG. 9A and/or otherdevice configured to execute instructions and/or supporting decodingfunctionality using either hardware or software components.

The higher fidelity (HF) input bitstream 430 and lower fidelity (LF)input bitstream 432 may be obtained using any applicable methodology ofdelivering digital content (e.g., streaming over wireless data network).The LF bitstream 432 may be decoded using a LF decoder 458 to obtainlower quality/lower fidelity image output 468. LF decoder 458 may beconfigured compatible with (or complementary to) the encoder 406 of FIG.4A (e.g., supporting appropriate block dimensions, tile configuration,group of pictures (GOP) structure, and/or other configurations). In someimplementations LF decoder 458 may be configured to implementfunctionality of decoder 408 of FIG. 4A.

In FIG. 4B, HF bitstream 430 may be decoded using HF decoder 456 toobtain higher fidelity image output 446 (that also may be referred to asthe reconstructed difference image). HF decoder 456 may be configuredcompatible with (or complementary to) the HF encoder 416 of FIG. 4A(e.g., supporting appropriate block dimensions, tile configuration,group of pictures (GOP) structure, and/or other configurations).

In some implementations, the HF encoder 416 may be configured to encodeimages using multiple blocks of pixels (referred to as a minimumviewport block (MVB)). The MVB may be the minimum size of the viewportwindow (e.g., 212 in FIG. 2). The MVB may be a block of pixels that canbe encoded (and decoded) independent of the blocks spatially ortemporally adjacent to it. The pixels in the MVB may be predicted from(i) a collocated block of a low-fidelity image; (ii) other pixels insidethe MVB, and/or (iii) a difference image from a co-located MVB forindividual stereo image channels when encoding multiple views e.g.stereo VR content encoding left and right eye images. In someimplementations, the MVB may include a block of 256 by 64 pixels codedusing tiles of a HEVC encoder. In one or more implementations, theencoder 416 may be configured to utilize 16×16 macroblocks to encode HFbitstream 430 using an intra-mode in H.264-scalable video codec. Thesize of the MVB may be adjusted in accordance with the input resolutionand application constraints. Larger MVBs may increase the size ofnon-visible area; this increases the compute resources that are neededto decode the non-visible area (which are non-essential bits). Incontrast, too small of a MVB can result in suboptimal compressionperformance for high-fidelity signals (e.g., viewport movement willconstantly update the MVB).

The decoded low fidelity (base layer) image 468 and the decoded highfidelity (enhancement layer) image 466 may be combined. In someimplementations, the combiner process 460 may include pixel wiseaddition operation with truncation where a value of a pixel at a givenlocation in one image is combined (added) to value of a pixel at thecorresponding location in another image. If the combined value exceedsthe pixel value range, then the combined value may be set to the limitof the pixel value range (e.g., 255 for 8-bit pixel values).

In some implementations, the HF input bitstream 430 may correspond to aportion of the input frame (e.g. viewport 212 of the frame 210 in FIG.2, 542 of frame 540 in FIG. 5B). The combination operation 460 mayinclude up-sampling an area 552 in FIG. 5B and then adding theup-sampled output to the HF input 466. Image 550 may be retained inmemory of the content decoding and/or display process; as the viewportposition and/or size changes, the content display process may retrievethe retained image and render a corresponding area in low-resolutionimage 550 while it waits for new HF input bitstream 430.

A combined output 462 may be presented for viewing. In one or moreimplementations, presentation 464 may include displaying a viewport 212into panoramic image via a VR headset (e.g., 200 in FIG. 2), and/or userinterface device 120 of FIG. 1A.

FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating group of frames (GOP)configuration of the spatial scalability encoder of the disclosure, inaccordance with one implementation. Stream denoted 500 corresponds to aGOP of a video segment (e.g., input 302 in FIG. 3A) that may be providedto a viewing device. The GOP 500 may include one or more I-frames (e.g.,502) and one or more P-frames 504, 506. In some implementations whereinhigher compression rate may be desired and/or greater latency may betolerated, the GOP may include one or more B-frames. Individual frames502, 504, and 506 may correspond to frame 540 described with respect toFIG. 5B. The P frame 504 may be encoded using information from theI-frame 502. The P frame 506 may be encoded using information (motionprediction) from the I-frame 502 and/or P-frame 504.

As illustrated in FIG. 5A, the I-frame 502 and P frame 504 correspond toone view (e.g., view 1 corresponding to one position of the viewport(e.g., 212 in FIG. 2)), whereas P-frame 506 corresponds to another view(e.g., view 2 corresponding to another viewport position (e.g., 222 inFIG. 2)). Still other arrangements may be substituted with equivalentsuccess by those of ordinary skill in the related arts given thecontents of the present disclosure; for example, any number of framesmay correspond to any number of views. Similarly, any arrangement of Iframes (independent frames), P frames (forward predictive frames),and/or B frames (bi-directionally predictive frames) may be used, theforegoing discussion being purely illustrative.

FIG. 5B illustrates another exemplary image configuration for use withthe scalable encoding methodology of the disclosure. The input image 540may be encoded to obtain a low fidelity output image 550 (e.g., theoutput bitstream 332 in FIG. 3A). The content of input 540 may beprovided to a user display device (e.g., 120 in FIG. 1A and/or 202 inFIG. 2). The provided content may include the LF image 550 and a portionof the image 540 encoded using HF encoding corresponding to the viewport(of the image 540) being displayed by the user device. The viewportlocation may correspond to a rectangular area 542 in FIG. 5B. The hashedrectangle 552 represents a location of the viewport in the low fidelityimage 550. The location of the viewport may be modified e.g., due touser head motion and/or the user moving the display device 120. The lowfidelity component of the content corresponding to the new viewportlocation may be obtained by the user device using an available versionof the LF image (e.g., cached image 550). In some implementations, theHF portion of the content (e.g., output bitstream 330 in FIG. 3A)corresponding to the updated location may be encoded and/or communicatedto the user device based on an indication of the viewport locationchange.

In one exemplary embodiment, the HF and LF content portions may becombined for display. The combination operation may include up-samplingarea 552 in FIG. 5B and then adding the output to the HF input 346 inFIG. 3B. Image 550 may be retained in the memory of the content decodingand/or display process. As the viewport position and/or size changes,the content display process may retrieve the retained image and render acorresponding area in low-resolution image 550 while it waits for new HFinput bitstream 330. It will be recognized by those skilled in the artsthat although a rectangular viewport is shown in FIG. 5B, various otherviewport shapes may be utilized, e.g., non-rectangular shapes (e.g.,contoured rectangle, contoured trapezoid, and/or trapezoid) and/or othershapes.

In some implementations, e.g., such as described with respect to FIG. 6,three or more scalability layers may be utilized. A multilayerscalability system may include a higher fidelity layer, a lower fidelitylayer, and one or more intermediate layers. FIG. 6 illustrates anexemplary three-layer scalability system 600 configuration, inaccordance with some implementations.

In FIG. 6, the three-layer scalability system 600 may include three (3)encoding layers configured to encode input 302 into an output bitstream640 including a higher fidelity output component 630, one or moreintermediate fidelity (IF) output components (e.g., 634 in FIG. 6), anda lower fidelity (LF) output component 632.

In FIG. 6, input 302 may be down-sampled by down-sampling component 602to obtain IF_(IN) image 614. In some implementations, the down-samplingcomponent 602 may be operable in accordance with methodology describedwith respect to component 304 of FIG. 3A. The down-sampling applied bythe component 604 may be selected between two (2) and sixteen (16) e.g.,two (2) in some implementations. By way of an illustration, for a7680×4320 pixel input 302, the down-sampled LF_(IN) output 616 may becharacterized by a full HD resolution of 3840 by 2160 pixels. Output 614may be regarded as intermediate fidelity input and referred to asIF_(IN).

In FIG. 6, IF_(IN) input 614 may be down-sampled by down-samplingcomponent 604 to obtain LF_(IN) input 616. In some implementations, thedown-sampling component 604 may be operable in accordance withmethodology described with respect to component 304 of FIG. 3A. Thedown-sampling applied by the component 604 may be selected between one(1) and sixteen (16), e.g., 1.5 or 2 in some implementations. By way ofan illustration, consider an image that has 1920 by 1080 pixelsresolution of the intermediate image, the down-sampled IF_(IN) image maybe characterized by full HD resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels. The output616 may be regarded as lower fidelity input and referred to as LF_(IN).

Lower fidelity input LF_(IN) 616 may be processed using methodologydescribed with respect to input 324 of FIG. 3A, wherein input 616 may beencoded to obtain LF output bitstream 632. The encoded LF bitstream maybe decoded by decoder 308 to obtain LF reconstructed output 626. LFreconstructed output 626 may be up-sampled by up-sampling component 610to obtain output 622. The up-sampling configurations 610 (e.g.,up-sampling factor) may be configured in accordance with thedown-sampling configuration (604). The output 622 may be referred to asLF reconstructed output at IF layer resolution or IF reconstructedoutput.

Inverted version of the IF reconstructed output 622 may be combined withthe intermediate layer input 614 by a difference component 618 to obtainan IF difference output 624. In some implementations, the inverseoperation and the combination operation may be effectuated by a givencomponent (e.g., subtraction component 318 of FIG. 3A).

IF difference output 624 may be encoded to obtain intermediate fidelityoutput bitstream 634. In some implementations, the encoder 606 may beconfigured using the encoding methodology of HEVC, H.264 and/or anotherencoding standard.

When encoding content, the size of the viewport window for individuallayers (e.g., intermediate and/or higher fidelity) may be configuredindependently from one another. Higher fidelity image portions may beselected to correspond to areas where a human eye may focus to (e.g.,objects of interest within an image); areas distant from the area offocus may be encoded using progressively lower-fidelity. Output of theencoder 606 may be decoded to obtain an IF_(DIFF) reconstructed output634. The lower fidelity layer's reconstructed and up-sampled output 622may be combined with the intermediate layer's differential reconstructedoutput 634 to obtain an intermediate fidelity reconstructed output 636.The combiner 638 may be configured to implement an addition operation tocombine 634 and 622. Reconstructed output 636 of intermediate fidelitylayer may be up-sampled. The up-sampling component 620 may be configuredin accordance with the configuration of the down-sampling component 602(e.g., the up-sampling factor of 620 may match the down-sampling factorof 602). The resolution of the up-sampled output 642 may match theresolution of the HF layer (e.g., input 302 in some implementations).

An inverted version of the up-sampled IF reconstructed output 644 may becombined with the higher fidelity input by component 628 to obtain HFdifference output 642. In some implementations, the inverse operationand the combination operation 628 may be effectuated by a givencomponent (e.g., subtraction component 318 of FIG. 3A). Output 642 maybe encoded to obtain high fidelity encoded bitstream component 630.

In some implementations, component 632 may represent a lower resolutionimage version characterizing low frequency features within the image;component 634 may represent a residual image version that characterizeshigher frequency features within the image compared to the component632; component 630 may represent higher resolution image versioncharacterizing higher frequency features within the image compared tothe component 634. In some variants, the lower fidelity component 632may characterize the whole panoramic input image 302 extent (e.g.,spherical image), whereas the higher fidelity components 634, 630 mayonly characterize portions of the panoramic input (viewport). In someimplementations, the position and/or dimensions of the viewport for theHF layer may be configured different from the position and/or extent ofthe IF layer. In still other implementations, the IF layer output 634may be configured to represent the entire extent of the panoramic image,whereas the HF layer output 630 only characterizes a portion of thepanoramic input (viewport). In yet other implementations, each of the HFlayer output 630, IF layer output 634, and LF layer output 632, areconfigured to represent the entire extent of the panoramic image. Stillother variations of the foregoing layered representation of thepanoramic image are readily appreciated by artisans of ordinary skill inthe related arts, given the contents of the present disclosure.

In some implementations, the reconstructed HF output may be stored(cached) for encoding one or more subsequent images. By way of anillustration, the output of encoder 316 may be decoded to obtainHF_(DIFF) _(_) _(RECONSTRUCTED) output 642. The output 642 may becombined with the IF output 644 to obtain the HF_(REC) output 650. Theoutput 650 may be cached and used for temporal prediction when encodingone or more subsequent images. The combiner 648 may be configured toimplement an addition operation to combine 644 and 642.

The output bitstream 640, including outputs 630, 634, 632, may beprovided to a target destination (e.g., stored on a storage mediumand/or streamed to a user interface device, e.g., 120 in FIG. 1 and/or202 in FIG. 2). One or more components 630, 632, 634 may be decoded andcombined to obtain a viewport image.

In some implementations of multilayer scalable encoding (e.g.,configuration 600 of FIG. 6), the encoding quality may be adapted for agiven layer. By way of an illustration, the intermediate layer output634 may be obtained by configuring encoder 606 to encode output at alower quality compared to encoder 316; LF output 632 may be obtained byconfiguring encoder 306 to encode output at a lower quality compared toencoder 606 e.g., by using quality scalability methodologies describedwith respect to FIGS. 4A-4B. In some implementations, the encoding maybe performed using a combination of quality scalability, resolutionscalability, and/or spatio-quality scalability. In one or moreimplementations, resolution modification (e.g.,down-sampling/up-sampling operations 602, 604, 610, 620 in FIG. 6) maybe added/omitted to effectuate quality scalability encoding.

In some implementations of panoramic content encoding, the spatialextent of the encoded bitstream may be modified in accordance with abitstream quality parameter and/or resolution parameter. By way of anillustration of encoding spherical (360-degree) content, an LF layer maybe configured to encode the whole spherical extent of the image; the HFlayer may be configured to encode a viewport of the spherical image(e.g., the portion that the user is viewing on a screen of a smartphone,the predicted view areas, and/or a foveal area); the IF layer may beconfigured to encode half of spherical extent of the image (e.g., thefront hemisphere where the viewport may be located). As the user movesthe viewport location (e.g., moves eyes left/right/up/down), the IFbitstream (and LF bitstream) may provide prediction information for theHF bitstream to display an updated viewport. If a user rapidly changesviewport location from the front hemisphere to back hemisphere (e.g., byrotating their head), the LF bitstream may still enable timely displayof the viewport image (at a lower resolution and/or quality) until theIF bitstream has buffered the display back hemisphere. It will berecognized by those skilled in the arts that more layers may be used andvarious other spatial layer configurations may be utilized givenresource constraints and/or requirements of a given application (e.g.,maximum latency, bandwidth, resolution, frame rate, available computingpower, memory, energy, and/or other parameters).

FIGS. 7A-8 illustrate methods 700, 720, 740, 800 for providing panoramiccontent in accordance with some implementations of the presentdisclosure. The operations of methods 700, 720, 740, 800 presented beloware intended to be illustrative. In some implementations, methods 700,720, 740, 800 may be accomplished with one or more additional operationsnot described, and/or without one or more of the operations discussed.Additionally, the order in which the operations of methods 700, 720,740, 800 are illustrated in FIGS. 7A-8 and described below is notintended to be limiting.

In some implementations, methods 700, 720, 740, 800 may be implementedin one or more processing devices (e.g., a digital processor, an analogprocessor, a digital circuit designed to process information, an analogcircuit designed to process information, a state machine, and/or othermechanisms for electronically processing information). The one or moreprocessing devices may include one or more devices executing some or allof the operations of methods 700, 720, 740, 800 in response toinstructions stored electronically on an electronic storage medium. Theone or more processing devices may include one or more devicesconfigured through hardware, firmware, and/or software to bespecifically designed for execution of one or more of the operations ofmethods 700, 720, 740, 800. Operations of methods 700, 720, 740, 800 maybe effectuated by one or more devices and/or computerized systemsincluding these described with respect to FIGS. 1A-1B and/or FIG. 9.

FIG. 7A illustrates a method of producing bitstreams for viewingpanoramic content in accordance with one implementation of the presentdisclosure. Artisans of ordinary skill will readily appreciate that thevarious aspects of the disclosed methods may be implemented by any ofthe exemplary apparatuses, including without limitation e.g., thedevices 110, and 130 of FIGS. 1A-1B, the systems 300, 340, 360, 370,380, 390 of FIGS. 3A-3F, the systems 400, 450 of FIGS. 4A-4B, the system600 of FIG. 6, the system 900, 940 of FIGS. 9A-9B, and/or the systems1000, 1020, 1040 of FIGS. 10A-10C.

At operation 702 of method 700, the first full resolution (FR) image FR1is obtained. In some implementations, the first full resolution imagemay correspond to one or more panoramic images. Individual panoramicfull resolution full frame images may be obtained by stitching two ormore source images obtained with a panoramic capture device, e.g., thedevice 110 of FIG. 1A. Panoramic full resolution images may berepresented using, e.g., rectilinear, planar equirectangular, cubic,icosahedron, octahedron, and/or other projections such as theequirectangular image shown by frame 210 in FIG. 2. In someimplementations, an input full resolution image may correspond to a wideangle image obtained with a wide angle lens (e.g., 120-degree to190-degree field of view). In some virtual reality implementations e.g.,such as described with respect to FIGS. 3C-3F, the FR image maycorrespond to an image of a pair of stereo images (e.g., one for eacheye/camera).

An FR image may be provided by a processor (e.g., 132 in FIG. 1B) inoperable communication with one or more imaging sensors. In someimplementations, the FR image may include an 8K image and becharacterized by resolution of 7680 by 4320 pixels, 7680 by 2160 pixels,and/or other resolution in excess of, e.g., full high definition (HD)resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels.

At operation 704 of method 700, the first FR image is down-sampled toobtain a low fidelity (LF) image. In some implementations, thedown-sampling operation may be effectuated by the component 304 of FIG.3A, and/or the base layer component 908 of FIG. 9A. Image down-samplingfactor may be selected between two (2) and sixteen (16), e.g., four (4)in some implementations. By way of an illustration, for a 7680 by 4320pixel FR image, the down-sampled image LF may be characterized by a fullHD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels.

At operation 706, LF image is encoded using LF encoder to obtain encodedLF bitstream. The down-sampled LF image (e.g., 324 in FIG. 3A) may beencoded to obtain a low fidelity (LF) output bitstream (e.g., 326 inFIG. 3A). Encoding operation 706 may be effectuated by component 306 ofFIG. 3A. The LF image encoding process may use any applicable encodere.g., block based encoders e.g., H.264, HEVC, V9, wavelet based encoders(e.g., JPEG 2000), lossless encoders and/or any practical image encoder.In some implementations, the encoding operation may be bypassed (i.e.,the encoding is skipped, and there is no compression of the LF image).The encoding operation 706 may be optimized for characteristics of theinput (LF image). By way of an illustration, given that the input intothe encoder corresponds to a down-sampled image, the input may containfewer high frequency features. As a result, the encoder may make biaseddecisions to optimize quality for this down-sampled image and/or usethese assumptions to speed up encoding. During encoding, the encoder maybe configured to save encoding results (e.g., such as motion vector andtransformation) for use in the encoding stage.

In some implementations, the term “fidelity” may be used to characterizeimage quality. Image quality may be characterized by one or more of: anencoded bitstream resolution, a bit-depth, a bitrate, or a combinationthereof, and/or other parameters. Encoding operation 706 may be tailoredto encode lower fidelity input more efficiently compared to encoding ofFR image version. The lower fidelity input may include a softenedversion of the FR image, reduced bit-depth version of the FR input, orthe unaltered FR input. The encoder operation 706 may include a typicalH.264, HEVC, and/or VP9 encoder functionality with IPPPP group ofpictures (GOP) structure. B-frames in GOP may be used to increasecompression performance. Output of the encoding operation 706 maytypically be characterized by at a lower bitrate compared to the bitrateof the FR image input.

At operation 708, the encoded LF bitstream is decoded to obtain areconstructed LF image. The decoding process may be configured to matchand/or complement the operation of encoding operation 706 using anyapplicable methodology, e.g., block based decoders like H.264, HEVC, V9,wavelet based decoders like JPEG 2000, and/or no decoding (if 324 is notbeing encoded).

At operation 710, the decoded LF image is up-sampled to obtain a secondFR image. The up-sampling operation 710 may be configured to reciprocatethe down-sampling operation 704. By way of an illustration, for a 7680by 4320 pixels FR image, the down-sampled LF image may be characterizedby a full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels; the reciprocatedup-sampled LF image may be characterized by 7680 by 4320 pixelsresolution (which matches the first FR image).

At operation 712, a difference (residual) image is obtained based on thesecond FR image and the first FR image. In some implementations, thedifference image may be obtained by subtracting values of pixels of theup-sampled decoded image (second FR image) from pixels of the first FRimage. For multi-channel images (e.g., RGB, YUV), the subtractionoperation may be effectuated for each individual channel of the multiplechannels.

At operation 713, a high fidelity (HF) bitstream is obtained based onencoding at least a portion of the difference image. The input into theencoding operation 713 may contain less energy at lower frequencies(features with large spatial scales within the image) and more energy athigher frequencies (features with small spatial scales within the image)compared to the FR input image.

In some implementations, subtraction and encoding operations may beeffectuated by a high fidelity encoder component. For example considerthe systems of FIGS. 10A-10C, where subtraction 318 and encodingoperations are effectuated by the high fidelity encoder component e.g.,encoder 1010 of the system 1000 of FIG. 10A (or a portion thereof, e.g.,the portion generating the HF output 1004), HF encoder 1026 of thesystem 1020 of FIG. 10B, HF encoder 1046 of the system 1040 of FIG. 10C.

In some implementations, the up-sampling operation 710 and subtractionoperation 712 may be effectuated by a HF layer encoder. For example,consider the encoder 1010 of system 1000 of FIG. 10A (or a portionthereof, e.g., the portion generating the HF output 1004), HF encoder1026 of the system 1020 of FIG. 10B, and/or HF encoder 1046 of thesystem 1040 of FIG. 10C. In such variants, the input to encoder mayinclude the high resolution input 302 and decoded reconstructed content328.

In some implementations, the down-sampling operations (e.g., 704) may beeffectuated by a LF encoder. For example, the encoder 1010 of the system1000 of FIG. 10A (or a portion thereof, e.g., the portion generating theLF output 1006), LF encoder 1024 of the system 1020 of FIG. 10B, LFencoder 1044 of the system 1040 of FIG. 10C

In some implementations, the operations of method 700 may be effectuatedusing an encoder component, such as the e.g., encoder 1010 of FIG. 10A.The encoder 1010 may receive the high resolution input and output two(2) bitstreams 1006, 1004 in FIG. 10A, corresponding to a low-fidelity(LF) image and high fidelity (HF) image, respectively.

The HF encoding operation 713 may be configured to encode a higherfidelity input more efficiently compared to a LF encoding operation 706.The HF encoding may be configured to utilize some of the encodingresults of operation 706 in order to optimize video quality and/or thespeed of encoding. A high fidelity encoder may use a GOP structureconsisting of I-frames and P-frames (e.g., IPPPP) to reduce latency thatmay be associated with processing of B-frames. Alternatively, inscenarios where latency is not at issue, B-frames may be used withsuccess. The HF encoder may be configured such that temporal prediction(from previous reference frames) is not allowed, so as to reduce and/oraltogether remove latency when the viewport changes. Since the HFencoder may be encoding higher resolution content compared to thecontent being encoded by the encoder of operation 706, HF encoding maybe operable to utilize larger block sizes, larger transform sizes (e.g.,2-4 times the standard transform size), and/or more advanced encodingtools tailored for high resolution image. By way of an illustration, inimage and/or video encoding applications, the discrete cosine transform(DCT) and/or discrete sine transform (DST) are frequently used to encodeimage residuals (e.g., input image minus a predicted image). Thesetransforms are configured to convert an image signal from a spatialdomain into a frequency domain. Transform coefficients in some frequencybands (e.g., lower frequency bands) may be quantized more aggressivelycompared to other frequency bands (with minimal or no loss ofperceptible fidelity in low frequency bands). Aggressive quantization ismade possible due to the fact that human eyes are more sensitive to lowfrequency signals and a majority of natural images/video contain a largepercentage of their total energy (e.g., ˜90%) in LF bands. Table 1presents one exemplary scaling matrix for an inter-frame 4×4 (Inter4×4)encoding configuration and an inter-frame 8×8 (Inter8×8) encodingconfiguration. As shown in the scaling matrices of Table 1, thequantizing coefficients are arranged in a zig-zag pattern with thelowest frequency coefficient in the left top corner and the highestfrequency coefficient in the right/bottom corner. The configuration ofTable 1 may be used with DCT transforms characterized by signed 16-bitcoefficients (with values ranging from −32768 to 32767). Low frequencycoefficients of a DCT transform may have absolute values that aregreater than the values of the high frequency coefficients. For example,in Table 1 a zigzag pattern is followed to map these numbers todifferent frequency bands, where the numbers increase from top left tobottom right (more quantization is done for HF bands).

In some implementations, a 4×4 transform may be applied to LF imagesbecause of their lower resolution. At high resolution, a 4×4 transform,an 8×8 transform, and/or other transform sizes may be used. In order toachieve better compression performances compared to a 4×4 transform, a4×4 transform may be combined with an 8×8 in the LF band. Scalingmatrices may be modified for a given application configuration (e.g.,given combination of bitrate, image quality, computational load, energyused, latency, and/or other image encoding/decoding parameters.)

TABLE 1 $\quad\begin{matrix}{{Inter}\; 4 \times 4} \\{Q_{4} = \begin{bmatrix}10 & 14 & 20 & 24 \\14 & 20 & 24 & 27 \\20 & 24 & 27 & 30 \\24 & 27 & 30 & 34\end{bmatrix}}\end{matrix}$ $\quad\begin{matrix}{{Inter}\; 8 \times 8} \\{Q_{8} = \begin{bmatrix}9 & 13 & 15 & 17 & 19 & 21 & 22 & 24 \\13 & 13 & 17 & 19 & 21 & 22 & 24 & 25 \\15 & 17 & 19 & 21 & 22 & 24 & 25 & 27 \\17 & 19 & 21 & 22 & 24 & 25 & 27 & 28 \\19 & 21 & 22 & 24 & 25 & 27 & 28 & 30 \\21 & 22 & 24 & 25 & 27 & 28 & 30 & 32 \\22 & 24 & 25 & 27 & 28 & 30 & 32 & 33 \\24 & 25 & 27 & 28 & 30 & 32 & 33 & 35\end{bmatrix}}\end{matrix}$

In some implementations, the LF encoder codec may be configureddifferently from the codec employed by the HF encoder. By way of anon-limiting illustration, the LF encoder may be configured based on aH.264 codec, while the HF encoder may be configured based on a HEVCcodec.

In one or more implementations, lower resolution content portion (e.g.,LF bitstream) may be encoded using more computationally intensiveconfiguration (e.g., more detailed motion prediction). The output (e.g.,motion vectors) of the LF encoding process may be reused and/or refinedby the HF encoder in order to reduce energy use associated withobtaining HF bitstream of a given quality and/or obtain higher qualityHF bitstream for given energy.

In some implementations, LF and HF bitstreams may be encoded usingindividually configured profiles of an encoder e.g., the LF bitstreammay be encoded using a H.264 baseline profile; the HF bitstream may beencoded using a higher profile of a number of profiles (e.g., the highprofile or high10 profile of H.264). Such implementations, mayadvantageously enable at least partial decoding of the encoded outputbitstreams (e.g., 330, 332 in FIG. 3A) by a decoder that may onlysupport lower quality decoder profiles (e.g., a decoder capable ofdecoding a baseline profile may decode the LF bitstream therebyproviding some representation of the content). A decoder capable ofdecoding a baseline and high profile may provide higher fidelity contentby decoding of the LF and the HF bitstreams, compared to a decodercapable of decoding only a single bitstream (LF or HF).

In one or more implementations, the encoding operation 713 may beconfigured to encode a portion of the residual image obtained atoperation 712. By way of an illustration, consider a user that isviewing panoramic content using a small display device (e.g., 120 inFIG. 1A and/or VR headset); the user may view a portion of the panoramicvideo (e.g., viewport 212 of FIG. 2 and/or 542 of FIG. 5B). The encodingoperation 713 may be configured to encode a portion of the residual HFimage corresponding to position and/or dimension of the viewport.

At operation 714, the encoded content is provided (for storage,transmission, or other delivery mechanism). In some implementations, thecontent provision may include provision of the encoded LF bitstream, andprovision of a portion of the difference image encoded using a HFencoder (e.g., 316 in FIG. 3A). In one or more implementations, contentprovision may include provision of the encoded LF bitstream, andprovision of the difference image encoded using a HF encoder (e.g., 316in FIG. 3A).

FIG. 7B illustrates a method of obtaining a viewport into a panoramiccontent in accordance with one implementation of the present disclosure.Operations of method 720 may be performed by a variety of devices, e.g.,remote device 120 of FIG. 1A, VR headset 202 in FIG. 2, a client device922 of FIG. 9A, or system 940 of FIG. 9B, and/or other device configuredto execute instructions and/or supporting decoding functionality usingeither hardware or software components.

At operation 722 of method 720, a first panoramic image is obtained bydecoding a first bitstream using a first decoder. In someimplementations, the first bitstream may include a lower fidelitybitstream, e.g., such as bitstream 332 described with respect to FIG.3A; the first panoramic image may correspond to a base layer (lowerfidelity) image such as image 324 of FIG. 3A, 348 of FIG. 3B. The firstdecoder of the decoding operation 722 may correspond to the LF decodercomponent 338 of FIG. 3B.

At operation 724, a viewport image is obtained by decoding a secondbitstream using a second decoder. In some implementations, the secondbitstream may include a higher fidelity bitstream e.g., such asbitstream 330 described with respect to FIG. 3A. In one such variant,the viewport image may correspond to an enhancement layer (higherfidelity) image, such as a difference image 322 of FIG. 3A, 348 of FIG.3B. The second decoder of the decoding operation 722 may correspond tothe HF decoder component 336 of FIG. 3B. The viewport may correspond toviewport 212 of FIG. 2 and/or 542 of FIG. 5B.

At operation 726, a second panoramic image is obtained by up-samplingthe first panoramic image to the resolution of the viewport image. Insome implementations, the up-sampling operation may be effectuated bycomponent 344 of decoder 340; the up-sampling factor may be configuredin accordance with a down-sampling factor utilized when obtaining the LFbitstream.

At operation 728, the final output view frame image is obtained bycombining the view frame image and the second panoramic image. In someimplementations, the output may correspond to an array of pixels used todisplay a viewport into a panoramic image (e.g., the viewport 542 ofFIG. 5B). The combination may include determination of the positionand/or extent of the viewport within the second panoramic image. Forexample, in one such variant, the dimensions 544, 546 of the viewport isdetermined. In one such variant, the position of the viewport isdetermined based on the location of the e.g., the left lower corner(such as is demonstrated at 545, 547 in FIG. 5B). The output may bedisplayed on a display device (e.g., 120 in FIG. 1A) and/or stored forsubsequent viewing.

While the aforementioned discussion of FIG. 7B is described with respectto applications for obtaining a viewport into a panoramic content,artisans of ordinary skill in the related arts will readily appreciatethat the foregoing discussion may be readily modified for providingcontent for rendering a viewport of panoramic content, given thecontents of the present disclosure. For example, a first high fidelity(HF) image may be obtained, and a low fidelity (LF) image can begenerated therefrom. A second HF image may be generated based on thefirst HF image and the LF image. The resulting difference image betweenthe first and second HF image along with the LF image can be provided inan encoded format for rendering. In some variants, only a portion of thedifference image corresponding to a viewport is provided.

FIG. 8 is logical flow diagram illustrating a method 800 of obtaining animage responsive to a change of a viewport within the panoramic contentin accordance with one implementation of the present disclosure.Operations of method 800 may be implemented by e.g., system 900 of FIG.9A.

At operation 802 of the method 800, for a given viewport, an outputimage is obtained. In some implementations, the given viewport maycorrespond to an area within panoramic image extent e.g., the area 212within image 210 in FIG. 2 and/or area 542 within panoramic image 540 inFIG. 5B. The output image may be obtained by combining a lower fidelitypanoramic image version and a difference image for the viewport areae.g., such as described with respect to FIG. 7A and/or FIG. 3B. Theoutput image may be displayed by a user interface device (e.g., 120 ofFIG. 1A).

At operation 804, a viewport change is determined. In someimplementations, the viewport change may be based on a change in theviewport orientation and/or position. By way of an illustration, aviewport change may be due to a user panning the display device 120along a trajectory 128. In other implementations, the viewport changemay be based on a change in the viewport dimension(s). Viewport changesmay be determined based on a transmission of viewport location,orientation, and/or dimension by a user interface device (e.g., 120 inFIG. 1A and/or 920 in FIG. 9A) to a content provision entity (e.g.,capture device 110 in FIG. 1A and/or processing apparatus 902 of FIG.9A).

At operation 806, another difference image for the new viewport may berequested. The another difference image may correspond to image 346 ofFIG. 3B and/or output of operation 712 of method 700. The new viewportmay correspond to viewport location, orientation and/or dimension (e.g.,viewport 222 in FIG. 2). By way of an illustration of VR contentviewing, the output image of operation 802 may correspond to viewport212 of FIG. 2; viewport change may occur due to user head movement fromconfiguration 200 to configuration 220; the another difference image maycorrespond to HF image corresponding to viewport 222 in FIG. 2.

At operation 808, another output image for the new viewport is obtained.The output image may be obtained by combining the panoramic imageversion (e.g., such as used at operation 802) and the another differenceimage for the new viewport obtained at operation 806. The another outputimage may be displayed by a user interface device (e.g., 120 of FIG. 1Aand/or 202 in FIG. 2).

FIG. 9A illustrates a computerized system for encoding content using thescalable encoding methodology of the disclosure. In someimplementations, the system 900 of FIG. 9A may be configured to encodecontent during content acquisition by a capture device. In one or moreimplementations, the system 900 may be configured to encode previouslyacquired content.

The system 900 of FIG. 9A may include a processing apparatus 902 (e.g.,including capture device 110 of FIG. 1A, 130 of FIG. 1B, a computingdevice in communications with a capture device and/or contentdepository, a cloud computing apparatus, and/or other apparatus)configured to obtain audio and/or imaging content, e.g., video and/orphotos. Content depository may include a network attached storage (NAS),a portable storage (e.g., flash memory), a cloud storage, a server, apersonal computer, a DVR, and/or other storage configuration.

The apparatus 902 may be in operable communication with one or moreremote client devices 922, 924 via one or more electronic communicationsinterface 920. The interface 920 may include one or more wiredinterfaces (e.g., serial, USB, Thunderbolt™, HDMI, Ethernet, and/orother wired interfaces) and/or wireless interfaces (e.g., WiFi,Bluetooth, cellular, and/or other interfaces). For example, suchelectronic communication links may be established, at least in part, viaone or more networks. In some implementations, a network may comprisethe Internet and/or may employ other communications technologies and/orprotocols. By way of non-limiting example, the interface 920 may employcommunication technologies including one or more of Ethernet, 802.11,worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), 3G, Long TermEvolution (LTE), digital subscriber line (DSL), asynchronous transfermode (ATM), InfiniBand, PCI Express Advanced Switching, and/or othercommunication technologies. By way of non-limiting example, network 120may employ networking protocols including one or more of multiprotocollabel switching (MPLS), transmission control protocol/Internet protocol(TCP/IP), User Datagram Protocol (UDP), hypertext transport protocol(HTTP), simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), file transfer protocol(FTP), and/or other networking protocols.

Information exchanged over the interface 920 may be represented usingformats including one or more of hypertext markup language (HTML),extensible markup language (XML), and/or other formats. One or moreexchanges of information between entities of system 100 may be encryptedusing encryption technologies including one or more of secure socketslayer (SSL), transport layer security (TLS), virtual private networks(VPNs), Internet Protocol security (IPsec), and/or other encryptiontechnologies. In some implementations, one or more entities of system900 may use custom and/or dedicated data communications technologiesinstead of, or in addition to, the ones described above.

The remote device 922, 924 may include a user interface device, one ormore of a portable communications device (e.g., smartphone, a digitalcamera, a laptop, a tablet computer, a desktop computer, a televisionset-top box, smart TV, a gaming console, a client computing platform,and/or other platforms), a capture device (e.g., a camera), and/or otherdevice configured to communicate information with the apparatus 902. Insome implementations, the system 900 may include multiple capturedevices 902, e.g., configured for obtaining panoramic content e.g., suchas described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/927,343 entitled“APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR ROLLING SHUTTER COMPENSATION FOR MULTI-CAMERASYSTEMS” filed on 29 Oct. 2015, the foregoing being incorporated hereinby reference in its entirety.

The apparatus 902 may include one or more physical processors 904configured by machine-readable instructions 906 and/or other components.Executing the machine-readable instructions 906 may cause the one ormore physical processors 904 to effectuate encoding of content usingmethodology of the disclosure. The machine-readable instructions 906 mayinclude one or more of content component, a base layer component 908,enhancement layer component 910, viewport determination component 912, adistribution component 914, and/or other components.

One or more features and/or functions of the apparatus 902 may befacilitation of video content acquisition, encoding and/or provision ofcontent. It is noted that although the present disclosure is directed tovideos and/or video clips, one or more other implementations of system900 and/or apparatus 902 may be configured for other types of mediaitems. By way of non-limiting example, other types of media items mayinclude one or more of audio files (e.g., music, podcasts, audio books,and/or other audio files), documents, photos, multimedia presentations,digital purchases of goods and services, and/or other media items.

The apparatus 902 may include electronic storage 918. The apparatus 902may include communication lines or ports to enable the exchange ofinformation with a network and/or other entities. Illustration ofapparatus 902 in FIG. 9A is not intended to be limiting. The apparatus902 may include a plurality of hardware, software, and/or firmwarecomponents operating together to provide the functionality attributedherein to apparatus 902. For example, the apparatus 902 may beimplemented by a cloud of computing platforms operating together asapparatus 902.

Electronic storage 918 may comprise electronic storage media thatelectronically stores information. The electronic storage media ofelectronic storage 918 may include one or both of system storage that isprovided integrally (i.e., substantially non-removable) with apparatus902 and/or removable storage that is removably connectable to apparatus902 via, for example, a port or a drive. A port may include a USB port,a Firewire port, and/or other port. A drive may include a disk driveand/or other drive. Electronic storage 918 may include one or more ofoptically readable storage media (e.g., optical disks, etc.),magnetically readable storage media (e.g., magnetic tape, magnetic harddrive, floppy drive, and/or other magnetic storage media), electricalcharge-based storage media (e.g., EEPROM, RAM, etc.), solid-statestorage media (e.g., flash drive, etc.), and/or other electronicallyreadable storage media. The electronic storage 918 may include one ormore virtual storage resources (e.g., cloud storage, a virtual privatenetwork, and/or other virtual storage resources). The electronic storage918 may be configured to store software algorithms, informationdetermined by processor(s) 904, information received from apparatus 902,information received from external resource(s), and/or other informationthat enables apparatus 902 to function as described herein.

The system 900 may include an external resource(s) operatively linkedvia one or more electronic communication links 920. External resource(s)may include sources of information, hosts, and/or other entities outsideof system 900, external entities participating with system 900,computing platforms, and/or other resources. In some implementations,some or all of the functionality attributed herein to external resourcesmay be provided by resources included in system 900.

It will be appreciated that this is not intended to be limiting and thatthe scope of this disclosure includes implementations in which apparatus902, client devices (e.g., 922, 924), external resources, and/or otherentities may be operatively linked via some other communication media.

Processor(s) 904 may be configured to provide information-processingcapabilities in apparatus 902. As such, processor 904 may include one ormore of a digital processor, an analog processor, a digital circuitdesigned to process information, an analog circuit designed to processinformation, a state machine, and/or other mechanisms for electronicallyprocessing information. Although processor 904 is shown in FIG. 9A as asingle entity, this is for illustrative purposes only. In someimplementations, processor 904 may include one or more processing units.These processing units may be physically located within the same device,or processor 904 may represent processing functionality of a pluralityof devices operating in coordination. The processor 904 may beconfigured to execute components 907, 908, 910, 912, and/or 914.Processor 904 may be configured to execute components 907, 908, 910,912, and/or 914 by software; hardware; firmware; some combination ofsoftware, hardware, and/or firmware; and/or other mechanisms forconfiguring processing capabilities on processor 904.

It should be appreciated that although components 907, 908, 910, 912,and/or 914 are illustrated in FIG. 9A as being co-located within asingle processing unit, in implementations in which processor 904includes multiple processing units, one or more of components 907, 908,910, 912, and/or 914 may be located remotely from the other components.The description of the functionality provided by the different 907, 908,910, 912, and/or 914 described above is for illustrative purposes and isnot intended to be limiting, as any of components 907, 908, 910, 912,and/or 914 may provide more or less functionality than is described. Forexample, one or more of components 907, 908, 910, 912, and/or 914 may beeliminated, and some or all of its functionality may be provided byother ones of components 907, 908, 910, 912, and/or 914 and/or othercomponents. As an example, processor 904 may be configured to executeone or more additional components that may perform some or all of thefunctionality attributed below to one of components 907, 908, 910, 912,and/or 914.

In FIG. 9A, the content component may be configured to access and/orencode image and/or audio content. In some implementations, thecomponent 907 may be configured to effectuate image/audio contentacquisition using any applicable methodologies including those describedherein. By way of an illustration, the component 907 may be operable toinstantiate content acquisition by the capture device 110 based on atimer event, user instruction, or a sensor event. In one or moreimplementations, the component 907 may be operable effectuate contentacquisition by a VR headset, e.g., such as shown in FIG. 2. In someimplementations, the component 907 may be operable to access previouslyacquired content from electronic storage 918 and/or external resource(e.g., external storage, and/or remote user device during contentupload). The operations performed by the content component 907 mayinclude information timestamping, adjustment of data rate, transcoding,post processing (e.g., adjusting white balance, sharpening, contrast,gamma and/or other parameters), trimming, and/or other operations. Insome implementations, the image/audio content and the metadata may bestored in a multimedia storage container (e.g., MP4, MOV) such asdescribed in detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/920,427,entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR EMBEDDING METADATA INTO VIDEOSTREAM” filed on 22 Oct. 2015, incorporated supra, and/or in a sessioncontainer (e.g., such as described in detail in U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 15/001,038, entitled “METADATA CAPTURE APPARATUS AND METHODS”filed on 19 Jan. 2016, the foregoing being incorporated herein byreference in its entirety).

In FIG. 9A the base layer image component 908 may be configured toeffectuate obtaining of a lower fidelity bitstream (e.g., 332, 333 ofFIGS. 3A-3D and/or 432 of FIG. 4A) using the encoder configuration shownand described herein. In some implementations, the base layer component908 may be configured to implement resolution scalability encoding,e.g., such as described with respect to FIG. 3A, and/or FIG. 3C-3D. Inone or more implementations, the base layer component 908 may beconfigured to implement quality scalability encoding, e.g., such asdescribed with respect to FIG. 4A. Various other encodingimplementations are contemplated including, e.g., a multilayerscalability encoding, combinations of resolution scalability and qualityscalability, and/or other scalability encoding implementations.

In FIG. 9A, enhancement layer component 910, may be configured toeffectuate obtaining of a higher fidelity bitstream (e.g., 330 of FIGS.3A-3D and/or 430 of FIG. 4A) using the encoder configuration shown anddescribed herein. In some implementations, the enhancement layercomponent 910 may be configured to obtain a HF bitstream usingresolution scalability encoding, e.g., such as described with respect toFIG. 3A, and/or FIG. 3C-3D. In one or more implementations, theenhancement layer component 910 may be configured to implement qualityscalability encoding, e.g., such as described with respect to FIG. 4A.Various other encoding implementations are contemplated, including e.g.,a multilayer scalability encoding, combinations of resolutionscalability and quality scalability, and/or other scalability encodingimplementations. The enhancement layer bitstream may characterize aportion (viewport) of the extent of the panoramic image (e.g., viewport542 in FIG. 5B). The viewport configuration may be provided by theviewport determination component 912. In some implementations, theenhancement layer component may be configured to obtain two or morebitstreams (e.g., for left/right channels of stereo imaging content;and/or intermediate and enhancement layer bitstreams 630, 634 of FIG.6).

In FIG. 9A, viewport determination component 912 may be configured todetermine viewport configuration. In some implementations, the viewport(e.g., 212 in FIG. 2, and/or 542 in FIG. 5B) may be obtained based oncoordinates of two diagonally opposing corners of a rectangle providedby. e.g., client device 922. In one or more implementations, theviewport configuration may include a viewport orientation that may beobtained based on orientation sensor output (e.g., gyro) of the clientdevice 922. The playback device may send absolute coordinates of therectangle that is being displayed (pixels values corresponding totop-left and bottom-right points). This may be performed at per frameinterval). In some implementations, the viewport may be updated based onviewport changes. In some implementations, gyroscopic information (inreal time) may be sent from the playback device.

In FIG. 9A, a distribution component 914, may be configured to providecontent to a given destination. The content may include the base layerbitstream and one or more enhancement layers. The content provision mayinclude storing the content on the storage component 918 for viewing;broadcasting content, and/or otherwise delivering content to one or moreclient devices (e.g., the remote device 922, 924 (e.g., smartphone)and/or external resource (e.g., cloud storage)), and/or otheroperations.

FIG. 9B illustrates a computerized system for decoding content usingscalable architecture of the disclosure, in accordance with oneimplementation.

In some implementations, the functionality of FIG. 9B may be implementedby a user interface device, e.g., smartphone, smart TV, set top box,tablet computer, game console, a system on a chip, and/or othercomputerized device.

The system 940 of FIG. 9B may include an apparatus 942 (e.g., includingcapture device 110 of FIG. 1A, user interface device (e.g., 120 of FIG.1B), a client device (e.g., 920 of FIG. 9A), a computing device incommunications with a capture device and/or content depository, a cloudcomputing apparatus, and/or other apparatus) configured to decode audioand/or imaging content, e.g., video and/or photos. Content depositorymay include a network attached storage (NAS), a portable storage (e.g.,flash memory), a cloud storage, a server, a personal computer, a DVR,and/or other storage configuration. The apparatus 942 may include a userinterface device, one or more of a portable communications device (e.g.,smartphone, a digital camera, a laptop, a tablet computer, a desktopcomputer, a television set-top box, smart TV, a gaming console, a VRheadset, a client computing platform, and/or other platforms), a capturedevice (e.g., a camera), and/or other device configured to communicateinformation with the apparatus 942. In some implementations, the system940 may include multiple capture devices, e.g., configured for obtainingpanoramic content e.g., such as described in U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/927,343 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR ROLLING SHUTTERCOMPENSATION FOR MULTI-CAMERA SYSTEMS” filed on 29 Oct. 2015, theforegoing being incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The apparatus 942 may be in operable communication with a processingapparatus (e.g., 902 of FIG. 9A) and one or more external resources 960via one or more electronic communications interface 920.

The apparatus 942 may include one or more physical processors 944configured by machine-readable instructions 946 and/or other components.Executing the machine-readable instructions 946 may cause the one ormore physical processors 944 to effectuate encoding of content usingmethodology of the disclosure. The machine-readable instructions 946 mayinclude one or more of: a viewport component 948, a base layer decodingcomponent 950, an enhancement layer decoding component (abbreviated inFIG. 9B as EL decoding component) 952, a viewport image reconstructioncomponent 954, a server communications component 956, and/or othercomponents.

One or more features and/or functions of the apparatus 942 may includethe capability of decoding video content. It is noted that although thepresent disclosure is directed to videos and/or video clips, one or moreother implementations of system 940 and/or apparatus 942 may beconfigured for other types of media items. By way of non-limitingexample, other types of media items may include one or more of audiofiles (e.g., music, podcasts, audio books, and/or other audio files),documents, photos, multimedia presentations, digital purchases of goodsand services, and/or other media items.

The apparatus 942 may include electronic storage 958. The apparatus 942may include communication lines or ports to enable the exchange ofinformation with a network and/or other entities. Illustration ofapparatus 942 in FIG. 9B is not intended to be limiting. The apparatus942 may include a plurality of hardware, software, and/or firmwarecomponents operating together to provide the functionality attributedherein to apparatus 942. For example, the apparatus 942 may beimplemented by a cloud of computing platforms operating together asapparatus 942.

Electronic storage 958 may comprise electronic storage media thatelectronically stores information. The electronic storage media ofelectronic storage 958 may include one or both of system storage that isprovided integrally (i.e., substantially non-removable) with apparatus942 and/or removable storage that is removably connectable to apparatus942 via, for example, a port or a drive. A port may include a USB port,a Firewire port, and/or other port. A drive may include a disk driveand/or other drive. Electronic storage 918 may include one or more ofoptically readable storage media (e.g., optical disks, etc.),magnetically readable storage media (e.g., magnetic tape, magnetic harddrive, floppy drive, and/or other magnetic storage media), electricalcharge-based storage media (e.g., EEPROM, RAM, etc.), solid-statestorage media (e.g., flash drive, etc.), and/or other electronicallyreadable storage media. The electronic storage 918 may include one ormore virtual storage resources (e.g., cloud storage, a virtual privatenetwork, and/or other virtual storage resources). The electronic storage918 may be configured to store software algorithms, informationdetermined by processor(s) 944, information received from apparatus 942,information received from external resource(s), and/or other informationthat enables apparatus 942 to function as described herein.

The system 940 may include an external resource(s) 960 operativelylinked via one or more electronic communication links 920. Externalresource(s) may include sources of information, hosts, and/or otherentities outside of system 940, external entities participating withsystem 940, computing platforms, and/or other resources. In someimplementations, some or all of the functionality attributed herein toexternal resources may be provided by resources included in system 940.By way of an illustration, external resource 960 may correspond to amedia center, configured to decode imaging content including LF and HFbitstreams and communicate decoded image content to a display device(e.g., smartphone and/or VR headset).

It will be appreciated that this is not intended to be limiting and thatthe scope of this disclosure includes implementations in which apparatus942, processing apparatus 902, external resources 960, and/or otherentities may be operatively linked via some other communication media.

Processor(s) 944 may be configured to provide information-processingcapabilities in apparatus 942. As such, processor 944 may include one ormore of a digital processor, an analog processor, a digital circuitdesigned to process information, an analog circuit designed to processinformation, a state machine, and/or other mechanisms for electronicallyprocessing information. Although processor 944 is shown in FIG. 9B as asingle entity, this is for illustrative purposes only. In someimplementations, processor 944 may include one or more processing units.These processing units may be physically located within the same device,or processor 944 may represent processing functionality of a pluralityof devices operating in coordination. The processor 944 may beconfigured to execute components 946, 948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956.Processor 944 may be configured to execute components 946, 948, 950,952, 954, and/or 956 by software; hardware; firmware; some combinationof software, hardware, and/or firmware; and/or other mechanisms forconfiguring processing capabilities on processor 944.

It should be appreciated that although components 946, 948, 950, 952,954, and/or 956 are illustrated in FIG. 9B as being co-located within asingle processing unit, in implementations in which processor 944includes multiple processing units, one or more of components 946, 948,950, 952, 954, and/or 956 may be located remotely from the othercomponents. The description of the functionality provided by thedifferent 946, 948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956 described above is forillustrative purposes and is not intended to be limiting, as any ofcomponents 946, 948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956 may provide more or lessfunctionality than is described. For example, one or more of components946, 948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956 may be eliminated, and some or allof its functionality may be provided by other ones of components 946,948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956 and/or other components. As an example,processor 944 may be configured to execute one or more additionalcomponents that may perform some or all of the functionality attributedbelow to one of components 946, 948, 950, 952, 954, and/or 956.

In FIG. 9B, viewport component 948 may be configured to determine aviewport configuration for displaying content on a display device(client device). In some implementations, the viewport (e.g., 212 inFIG. 2, and/or 542 in FIG. 5B) position, orientation, and/or dimensionsmay be obtained based on coordinates of two diagonally opposing cornersof a screen of the client device (e.g., 202 in FIG. 2, 120 in FIG. 1A).In one or more implementations, the viewport configuration may includeviewport orientation that may be obtained based on orientation sensoroutput (e.g., gyroscopes) of the content display device. The device maysend absolute coordinates of the rectangle that is being displayed(pixels coordinates corresponding to top-left and bottom-right points).This may be performed on a per frame interval). In some implementations,the viewport may be updated based on viewport changes. In someimplementations, gyroscopic information (in real time) may be sent fromplayback device.

In FIG. 9B the base layer decoding component 950 may be configured todecode a lower fidelity bitstream (e.g., 332, 333 of FIGS. 3A-3F and/or432 of FIGS. 4A-4B) using one or more decoder configurations shown anddescribed herein. In some implementations, the base layer component 950may be configured to implement resolution scalability decoding e.g.,such as described with respect to FIG. 3B and/or FIG. 3E-3F. In one ormore implementations, the base layer component 950 may be configured toimplement quality scalability decoding e.g., such as described withrespect to FIG. 4B. Various other encoding implementations arecontemplated including e.g., a multilayer scalability encoding,combinations of resolution scalability and quality scalability, and/orother scalability encoding implementations. Base layer bitstream maycharacterize extent of the panoramic image (e.g., extent of image 540 inFIG. 5B).

In FIG. 9B, enhancement layer (EL) component 952, may be configured todecode a higher fidelity bitstream (e.g., 330 of FIGS. 3A-3D) using oneor more decoder configurations shown and described herein. In someimplementations, the enhancement layer component 952 may be configuredto decode a HF bitstream using resolution scalability coding e.g., suchas described with respect to FIG. 3B, and/or FIG. 3E-3F. In one or moreimplementations, the enhancement layer component 952 may be configuredto implement quality scalability decoding e.g., such as described withrespect to FIG. 4B. Various other encoding implementations arecontemplated including e.g., a multilayer scalability encoding,combinations of resolution scalability and quality scalability, and/orother scalability encoding implementations. The enhancement layerbitstream may characterize a portion (viewport) of the extent of thepanoramic image (e.g., viewport 542 in FIG. 5B). The viewportconfiguration may be provided by the viewport component 948. In someimplementations, the enhancement layer component may be configured todecode two or more bitstreams (e.g., for left/right channels of stereoimaging content; and/or intermediate and enhancement layer bitstreamssuch as 630, 634 of FIG. 6).

In FIG. 9B, a viewport image reconstruction component 954, may beconfigured to obtain an image for a viewport. Component 954 may beconfigured to determine portion of the base layer image corresponding toa viewport, perform pixel-wise addition of pixels of the portion of thebase layer image and pixels of the enhanced layer image, performinterpolation, and/or other operations. The viewport image may beprovided to a target destination, e.g., including storing the image on astorage component 958 for viewing; displaying on a display,communicating to a display device, and/or otherwise delivering contentto one or more client devices (e.g., the remote device 922, 924 (e.g.,smartphone) and/or external resource (e.g., cloud storage)), and/orother operations.

FIGS. 10A-10C illustrate exemplary configurations of scalability encoderthat may be utilized for providing viewable panoramic content, inaccordance with some implementations.

In FIG. 10A, encoder 1010 may be configured to obtain high fidelity (HF)output and low fidelity (LF) based on the input 1002 (e.g., 302 of FIG.3A) using any applicable methodologies including these described herein.

In FIG. 10B, LF encoder 1024 may be configured to effectuate down-sampleoperation, e.g., such as described herein; HF 1026 encoder may beconfigured to effectuate the up-sample and/or the difference imagedetermination (e.g., subtraction) operations, e.g., such as describedherein.

In FIG. 10C, HF encoder 1046 may be configured to determine thedifference image using any applicable methodologies, including thesedescribed herein.

FIG. 11 illustrates a processing pipeline for providing panoramiccontent using scalability methodology of the disclosure.

Panoramic content may be obtained using one or more capture devices,e.g., multi-lens capture apparatus 110 of FIG. 1, a unibody sphericalcamera 1102, e.g., such as shown and described in U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/057,896, entitled “UNIBODY DUAL-LENS MOUNT FOR ASPHERICAL CAMERA”, filed 1 Mar. 2016, the foregoing being incorporatedherein by reference in its entirety; and/or a capture device 1104 with awide angle lens (i.e., a lens whose focal length is substantiallysmaller than the focal length of a normal lens for a given film plane).In some implementations, the capture device 1104 may be characterized bylens horizontal angle of view (field of view) that may be greater than60°. e.g., 120° in one implementation.

One or more capture devices (e.g. 110, 1102, 1104 in FIG. 11) may obtainpanoramic content 1106 that may be characterized by spherical field ofview and/or spherical distortion. As used herein, the term sphericalfield of view may be used to refer to content that may be obtained withcapture device characterized by a lens curvature that is substantiallydifferent than a planar (rectilinear) lens. Panoramic content may betransformed into equirectangular (ER) content using transformationoperation 1108. The transformation operation may in some implementationsinclude fish eye to ER transformation. Equirectangular content (e.g.,equirectangular images) may be encoded using scalable encodingmethodology of the disclosure. Content encoded by the encoder 1010 maybe provided to a target destination (e.g., user device 120 of FIG. 1A,VR device 202 of FIG. 2). Encoded content may be decoded. Decoder 1112may be configured using any applicable methodologies, e.g., such asdescribed with respect to FIG. 3B and/or FIG. 4B). Decoded content maybe transferred to spherical representation. In some implementations,transformation 1114 may be configured to transform a portion of thefield of view associated with a view port (e.g., 542) using atransformation that may be reciprocal (e.g., inverse) to thetransformation operation 1108. The transformed content may be renderedby a render operation 1116. Rendering operation 1118 may be configuredbased on hardware and/or software capabilities of the client device(e.g., 120 in FIG. 1A). In some implementations, rendering operationsmay include obtaining bitmap texture, procedural textures,lights/shadows, bump mapping and relative position to other objects.Rendered content may be presented. In some implementations, presentation1218 may include projection of content on a display device, e.g., VRheadset. In some implementations wherein presentation may be effectuatedby a 2D display, rendering operation may be bypassed.

Where certain elements of these implementations can be partially orfully implemented using known components, only those portions of suchknown components that are necessary for an understanding of the presentdisclosure will be described, and detailed descriptions of otherportions of such known components will be omitted so as not to obscurethe disclosure.

In the present specification, an implementation showing a singularcomponent should not be considered limiting; rather, the disclosure isintended to encompass other implementations including a plurality of thesame component, and vice-versa, unless explicitly stated otherwiseherein.

Further, the present disclosure encompasses present and future knownequivalents to the components referred to herein by way of illustration.

As used herein, the term “bus” is meant generally to denote all types ofinterconnection or communication architecture that may be used tocommunicate date between two or more entities. The “bus” could beoptical, wireless, infrared or another type of communication medium. Theexact topology of the bus could be for example standard “bus”,hierarchical bus, network-on-chip, address-event-representation (AER)connection, or other type of communication topology used for accessing,e.g., different memories in a system.

As used herein, the terms “computer”, “computing device”, and“computerized device”, include, but are not limited to, personalcomputers (PCs) and minicomputers, whether desktop, laptop, orotherwise, mainframe computers, workstations, servers, personal digitalassistants (PDAs), handheld computers, embedded computers, programmablelogic device, personal communicators, tablet computers, portablenavigation aids, J2ME equipped devices, cellular telephones, smartphones, personal integrated communication or entertainment devices, orliterally any other device capable of executing a set of instructions.

As used herein, the term “computer program” or “software” is meant toinclude any sequence or human or machine cognizable steps which performa function. Such program may be rendered in virtually any programminglanguage or environment including, for example, C/C++, C#, Fortran,COBOL, MATLAB™, PASCAL, Python, assembly language, markup languages(e.g., HTML, SGML, XML, VoXML), and the like, as well as object-orientedenvironments such as the Common Object Request Broker Architecture(CORBA), Java™ (including J2ME, Java Beans), Binary Runtime Environment(e.g., BREW), and the like.

As used herein, the terms “connection”, “link”, “transmission channel”,“delay line”, “wireless” means a causal link between any two or moreentities (whether physical or logical/virtual), which enablesinformation exchange between the entities.

As used herein, the terms “integrated circuit”, “chip”, and “IC” aremeant to refer to an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterneddiffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate ofsemiconductor material. By way of non-limiting example, integratedcircuits may include field programmable gate arrays (e.g., FPGAs), aprogrammable logic device (PLD), reconfigurable computer fabrics (RCFs),systems on a chip (SoC), application-specific integrated circuits(ASICs), and/or other types of integrated circuits.

As used herein, the term “memory” includes any type of integratedcircuit or other storage device adapted for storing digital dataincluding, without limitation, ROM. PROM, EEPROM, DRAM, Mobile DRAM,SDRAM, DDR/2 SDRAM, EDO/FPMS, RLDRAM, SRAM, “flash” memory (e.g.,NAND/NOR), memristor memory, and PSRAM.

As used herein, the terms “microprocessor” and “digital processor” aremeant generally to include digital processing devices. By way ofnon-limiting example, digital processing devices may include one or moreof digital signal processors (DSPs), reduced instruction set computers(RISC), general-purpose (CISC) processors, microprocessors, gate arrays(e.g., field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)), PLDs, reconfigurablecomputer fabrics (RCFs), array processors, secure microprocessors,application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and/or other digitalprocessing devices. Such digital processors may be contained on a singleunitary IC die, or distributed across multiple components.

As used herein, the term “network interface” refers to any signal, data,and/or software interface with a component, network, and/or process. Byway of non-limiting example, a network interface may include one or moreof FireWire (e.g., FW400, FW110, and/or other variation.), USB (e.g.,USB2), Ethernet (e.g., 10/100, 10/100/1000 (Gigabit Ethernet), 10-Gig-E,and/or other Ethernet implementations), MoCA, Coaxsys (e.g., TVnet™),radio frequency tuner (e.g., in-band or OOB, cable modem, and/or otherprotocol), Wi-Fi (802.11), WiMAX (802.16), PAN (e.g., 802.15), cellular(e.g., 3G, LTE/LTE-A/TD-LTE, GSM, and/or other cellular technology),IrDA families, and/or other network interfaces.

As used herein, the term “Wi-Fi” includes one or more of IEEE-Std.802.11, variants of IEEE-Std. 802.11, standards related to IEEE-Std.802.11 (e.g., 802.11 a/b/g/n/s/v), and/or other wireless standards.

As used herein, the term “wireless” means any wireless signal, data,communication, and/or other wireless interface. By way of non-limitingexample, a wireless interface may include one or more of Wi-Fi,Bluetooth, 3G (3GPP/3GPP2), HSDPA/HSUPA, TDMA, CDMA (e.g., IS-95A,WCDMA, and/or other wireless technology), FHSS, DSSS, GSM, PAN/802.15,WiMAX (802.16), 802.20, narrowband/FDMA, OFDM, PCS/DCS,LTE/LTE-A/TD-LTE, analog cellular, CDPD, satellite systems, millimeterwave or microwave systems, acoustic, infrared (i.e., IrDA), and/or otherwireless interfaces.

As used herein, the term “camera” may be used to refer to any imagingdevice or sensor configured to capture, record, and/or convey stilland/or video imagery, which may be sensitive to visible parts of theelectromagnetic spectrum and/or invisible parts of the electromagneticspectrum (e.g., infrared, ultraviolet), and/or other energy (e.g.,pressure waves).

It will be recognized that while certain aspects of the technology aredescribed in terms of a specific sequence of steps of a method, thesedescriptions are only illustrative of the broader methods of thedisclosure, and may be modified as required by the particularapplication. Certain steps may be rendered unnecessary or optional undercertain circumstances. Additionally, certain steps or functionality maybe added to the disclosed implementations, or the order of performanceof two or more steps permuted. All such variations are considered to beencompassed within the disclosure disclosed and claimed herein.

It is further recognized that the various aspects of the presentdisclosure may be implemented, with proper adaptation by one of ordinaryskill given the present disclosure, using either so-called “lossy” or“lossless” encoder paradigms.

While the above detailed description has shown, described, and pointedout novel features of the disclosure as applied to variousimplementations, it will be understood that various omissions,substitutions, and changes in the form and details of the device orprocess illustrated may be made by those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the disclosure. The foregoing description is of the bestmode presently contemplated of carrying out the principles of thedisclosure. This description is in no way meant to be limiting, butrather should be taken as illustrative of the general principles of thetechnology. The scope of the disclosure should be determined withreference to the claims.

1. A computerized apparatus for providing video content, the apparatuscomprising: an electronic storage apparatus configured to store asequence of images of a first frame resolution; a communicationsinterface configured to enable communication of bitstreams to a clientdevice; and one or more processors configured to execute a plurality ofcomputer readable instructions; and a storage apparatus in datacommunication with the one or more processors and comprising at leastone computer program, the at least one computer program comprising aplurality of instructions which are configured to, when executed by theone or more processors, cause the computerized apparatus to: obtain afirst full resolution image at the first frame resolution from thesequence of images; obtain a low fidelity image at a second frameresolution lower than the first frame resolution based at least in parton a down-sampled version of the first full resolution image; encode thelow fidelity image into a low fidelity bitstream; decode the lowfidelity bitstream into a decoded low fidelity image; obtain a secondfull resolution image based at least in part on an up-sampled version ofthe decoded low fidelity image; obtain a difference image based on thesecond full resolution image and the first full resolution image; encodea portion of the difference image to obtain a high fidelity bitstream;and provide the low fidelity bitstream and the high fidelity bitstreamvia the communications interface.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, whereinthe low fidelity bitstream is characterized by at least first bitrate,and the high fidelity bitstream is characterized by at least a secondbitrate.
 3. The apparatus of claim 2, wherein a ratio of the firstbitrate to the second bitrate is based on a Quality of Service (QoS)parameter associated with the communications interface.
 4. The apparatusof claim 1, wherein a ratio of the second frame resolution to the firstframe resolution is based at least on a resolution scalabilityparameter.
 5. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the resolutionscalability parameter is selected from a range of two (2) to sixteen(16) inclusive.
 6. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the resolutionscalability parameter is based at least in part on a Quality of Service(QoS) parameter associated with the communications interface.
 7. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein the plurality of instructions are furtherconfigured to, when executed by the one or more processors, cause theapparatus to: down-sample the down-sampled version of the first fullresolution image to obtain a lower fidelity image at a third frameresolution lower than the second frame resolution; encode the lowerfidelity image into a lower fidelity bitstream; decode the lowerfidelity bitstream into a decoded lower fidelity image; up-sample thedecoded lower fidelity image to obtain a second low resolution image,the down-sampled version of the first full resolution image furtherbeing combined with the second low resolution image to obtain the lowfidelity image; and provide the lower fidelity bitstream via thecommunications interface.
 8. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein theplurality of instructions are further configured to, when executed bythe one or more processors, cause the apparatus to: obtain another fullresolution image at the first frame resolution from the sequence ofimages; down-sample the another full resolution image to obtain a secondlow fidelity image at the second frame resolution; encode the second lowfidelity image into a second low fidelity bitstream; decode the secondlow fidelity bitstream into a second decoded low fidelity image;up-sample the second decoded low fidelity image to obtain a third fullresolution image; obtain a second difference image based on the anotherfull resolution image and the third full resolution image; encode asecond portion of the second difference image relative to the differenceimage to obtain a second high fidelity bitstream; and provide the secondlow fidelity bitstream and the second high fidelity bitstream via thecommunications interface.
 9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the fullresolution image and the another full resolution image collectivelycomprise a stereo image. 10.-15. (canceled)
 16. A method for providingvideo content, the method comprising: obtaining a first high fidelityimage; obtaining a low fidelity image based at least on the first highfidelity image; encoding the low fidelity image according to a scalableparameter to produce an encoded low fidelity image; obtaining a secondhigh fidelity image based at least on the low fidelity image; obtaininga difference image based at least on the second high fidelity image andthe first high fidelity image; encoding a portion of the differenceimage corresponding to a viewport; and providing the encoded lowfidelity image and the encoded portion of the difference image to adisplay device via a communications link.
 17. The method of claim 16,wherein the scalable parameter is based at least in part on a limitationof the display device.
 18. The method of claim 16, wherein the scalableparameter is based at least in part on a limitation of thecommunications link. 19.-20. (canceled)
 21. A computerized apparatus forproviding video content, the apparatus comprising: an electronic storageapparatus configured to store a sequence of images having a first frameresolution; a communications interface configured to enablecommunication of bitstreams to a client device; one or more processorsin data communication with the communications interface; logicconfigured to obtain a first resolution image at the first frameresolution from the sequence of images; logic configured to obtain a lowfidelity image at a second frame resolution lower than the first frameresolution based at least in part on a down-sampled version of the firstfull resolution image; at least one encoder configured to encode the lowfidelity image into a low fidelity bitstream; at least one decoderconfigured to decode the low fidelity bitstream into a decoded lowfidelity image; logic configured to obtain a second resolution imagebased at least in part on an up-sampled version of the decoded lowfidelity image; logic configured to obtain a difference image based onthe second resolution image and the first resolution image; the at leastone encoder configured to encode a portion of the difference image toobtain a high fidelity bitstream; and logic configured to provide thelow fidelity bitstream and the high fidelity bitstream via thecommunications interface.
 22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the lowfidelity bitstream is characterized by at least first bitrate, and thehigh fidelity bitstream is characterized by at least a second bitrate;and wherein a ratio of the first bitrate to the second bitrate is basedon a Quality of Service (QoS) parameter associated with thecommunications interface.
 23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein a ratioof the second frame resolution to the first frame resolution is based atleast on a resolution scalability parameter.
 24. The apparatus of claim23, wherein the resolution scalability parameter is selected from arange of two (2) to sixteen (16) inclusive.
 25. The apparatus of claim23, wherein the resolution scalability parameter is based at least inpart on a Quality of Service (QoS) parameter associated with thecommunications interface.
 26. The apparatus of claim 21, furthercomprising: a down-sampling component configured to down-sample thedown-sampled version of the first resolution image to obtain a lowerfidelity image at a third frame resolution lower than the second frameresolution; the at least one encoder configured to encode the lowerfidelity image into a lower fidelity bitstream; the at least one decoderconfigured to decode the lower fidelity bitstream into a decoded lowerfidelity image; an up-sampling component configured to up-sample thedecoded lower fidelity image to obtain a second low resolution image,the down-sampled version of the first resolution image further beingcombined with the second low resolution image to obtain the low fidelityimage; and logic configured to provide the lower fidelity bitstream viathe communications interface.
 27. The apparatus of claim 21, furthercomprising: logic configured to obtain another resolution image at thefirst frame resolution from the sequence of images; a down-samplingcomponent configured to down-sample the another resolution image toobtain a second low fidelity image at the second frame resolution; theat least one encoder configured to encode the second low fidelity imageinto a second low fidelity bitstream; the at least one decoderconfigured to decode the second low fidelity bitstream into a seconddecoded low fidelity image; an up-sampling component configured toup-sample the second decoded low fidelity image to obtain a thirdresolution image; logic configured to obtain a second difference imagebased on the another resolution image and the third resolution image;the at least one encoder configured to encode a second portion of thesecond difference image relative to the difference image to obtain asecond high fidelity bitstream; and logic configured to provide thesecond low fidelity bitstream and the second high fidelity bitstream viathe communications interface.
 28. The apparatus of claim 27, wherein thefirst resolution image and the another resolution image collectivelycomprise a stereo image.